Greater Danbury Continuum of Care
Meeting Minutes
1/12/2010
Present: Melanie Johnson, APGD; Michele Conderino, Catholic Charities; Sue Zaborowski, City of Danbury; Eileen Walsh, New Opportunities;Nikki Singer, ARC; Sabrina Ross, Head Start; Vestina Rankin, CACD; Lisa Farmer, CACD; Carol Glintenkamp, Danbury Public Schools, Gladys McFarland, Amos House, Milena Sangut, WCMHN
Program Updates:
Warm Hands/Warm Hearts: The Danbury Housing Partnership Social Services Committee is sponsoring warm hat, gloves and sock drive. The drive will benefit individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness or who are at risk of becoming homeless. The collection dates will be Monday 1/25 to Thursday 1/28. Drop off locations are at Danbury City Hall Lobby or Ability Beyond Disability. Collected items will be distributed at Dorothy Day during Morning Glory Breakfast on 2/10 6:30am-9am.
Samuel’s Court: Milena distributed a notice that wait list for Samuel’s court Apartments located at 5 Scuppo Rd in Danbury will be closing effective February 1, 2010. All application have to be submitted and stamped by 2/1/10, 5pm in order to be placed on the wait list. Re-opening of the wait list will be advertised in the Danbury News Times.
Housing Symposium: St. Vincent’s Behavioral Health Services Hall-Brooke will be holding a Housing Symposium on Thursday 2/25. Flyers and registration information was distributed.
Project Homeless Connect: Milena distributed the data for Project Homeless Connect. Noted the increase in homeless young adults.
Point In Time Count
Michele Conderino reported that the Sheltered Point In Time count will be held on January 27, 2010. Data will be entered into the HMIS. For agencies that enter directly into the HMIS, there will be a webinar explaining the process and how to submit data into the HMIS. Other agencies will do paper surveys and submit to CCEH. The count will be held from 9pm-11pm. Volunteers will meet at the City Shelter at 8pm and conduct the counts at City Shelter, Dorothy Day, Overflow Shelter and the Jericho Partnership.
The Unsheltered count will take place on 1/28 6:30am-9am during Morning Glory Breakfast. Paper surveys will not be utilized. There will be a head count with a question asked about where they slept the night before. The CoC discussed conducting a summer count using the same mechanism. The motion was made and passed unanimously. The count will be held in June at Dorothy Day during Morning Glory Breakfast.
HMIS
Nikki Singer distributed HMIS APR report for 1/1/09-12/31/09. CoC reviewed the report There were 347 new people entered into the HMIS during this time period. There were 87 individuals between the ages of 18-30. CoC asked if a report could be run for ages 18-25.
HPRP
Nikki Singer and Lisa Farmer gave the following update on the HPRP Program for the first quarter:
CACD: Served 8 people; 5 were prevention, 3 were rapid re-housing. Expended $12,187.99
ARC: 35 screened, 14 approved, 9 pending. 2 were rapid re-housing, 12 were prevention. Expended $14,000.00.
Nikki and Lisa reported that three quarters of the money thus far have been spent on homeless prevention, the rest on rapid re-housing. Nikki Singer reported that the DSS Security Deposit Guarantee referral are now submitted through ARC.
Lisa Farmer reported that CACD will be doing a foreclosure and evictions prevention seminar.
Hearth ACT
Reviewed the HEARTH ACT and future implications for the CoC. The HEARTH ACT will go into effect at the end of 2011.
Workgroups
Employment Workgroup: Has not met
Family Homelessness: New group to identify family homelessness, solutions and best practices. Workgroup members: Sabrina Ross, Carol Glintenkamp
Young Adults: New group to identify homelessness among young adults (18-25), solutions and best practices. Workgroup member: Michele Conderino, Carol Glintenkamp.
Other Business: Milena brought up discussion about the CoC, and perhaps looking at voting in new chair and co-chair in the coming year. In addition Milena discussed the option of having the Danbury CoC join the Balance of State Continuum of Care. Some of the pros to doing this is the increase of pro-rata and the opportunity to bring more new projects into our area. The drawback is that it may be more competitive. Exhibit 1 would be completed by Balance of State; Project Applications would still be completed by the project applicants. The CoC agreed to continue this discussion at our February meeting and to invite Mr. Steve Dilella; Boss Chair to our March meeting for further discussion and questions and answers.
Next Meeting: February 9, 2010 (Meeting Cancelled)
March 9, 2010