The Coordinated Entry System Coordinator has been a pivotal position for the Homeless Leadership Coalition. The primary purpose of this contracted position was to further refine the Coordinated Entry System (CES), which is a mandate from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for Continuum of Cares to implement. The system functioned at a rudimentary level after the implementation deadline of January 23, 2018, and the CES Coordinator was tasked with engaging additional service providers, streamlining and adding assessment hubs, ensuring assessment and services access for all people experiencing homelessness, organizing effective case conferencing and increasing placements in Continuum of Care-funded housing programs. The CES Coordinator position has been very beneficial to increasing the efficacy of the system and working towards housing some of our communities’ most vulnerable neighbors.
“Ana first came to a Central Oregon youth shelter when she was 16 years old. She had been on her own since her mother died when she was 13 years old. Ana supported herself working in fast food jobs and had somehow escaped foster care by moving on whenever someone suspected she might be an unaccompanied youth. When I first spoke to Ana, she was boarding a bus headed to Bend from Arizona, she promptly told me that she would be at our shelter in two days and to have her room ready. Later, I would learn that she had roots in Central Oregon and had stayed the night in our shelter once before and she knew she would be safe there. Once at the shelter Ana went back to school, worked full-time and graduated high school. When Ana was ready to move out of the shelter, she was referred to the Coordinated Entry Program. Ana was accepted into the Rapid Re-Housing Program and lived in her own apartment with case management support. Ana completed 12 months in the Rapid-Rehousing program and now has maintained stable housing and employment out of the program. When I met Ana, she had not been anywhere for longer than a few months, but for the first time since she was 13 years old, Ana found a home.”
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- There is a strong sense of urgency due to a HUD requirement that the CES system be up and running in the region by January 23, 2018. A "soft launch" of the CES was conducted on October 23, 2017 (see attached), but there is a lot more work to be done. This project/request involves the hiring of three new/expanded positions - $30,000 towards a 0.5 FTE CES Program Coordinator, $20,000 towards a 1.0 FTE Housing Navigator, and $40,000 towards a 0.5 FTE HLC Director position - these positions will help to expedite the implementation of CES, increase the capacity to serve this at-risk population, and continue to move the HLC in a direction of growth.
- This project was implemented by Homeless Leadership Coalition.
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The project attempted to:-
Implement Coordinated Entry System (CES) by January 23, 2018 (this is a requirement of HUD)
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Create ease of access to a wide spectrum of services for homeless and high-risk individuals
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Be able to consider expanding services to include homeless prevention, rental assistance, and others within 18 months
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We were able to garner a couple additional private landlords as partners in these efforts. One of them has become a word-of-mouth recruiter to help engage other private landlords to rent to people experiencing homelessness.
The built-in support provided by the Housing Navigator meant that someone was able to walk alongside this vulnerable population and helped to facilitate placements of seven hard-to-house households.
We shifted to an online assessment process allowing for an easier accessible format for service providers to refer individuals to the system. Before the switch, there were assisters available to complete in person assessments in each community.
There were approximately 522 households that were contacted and assessed through the CES system for fiscal year 18/19 with roughly 52 housing placements. This was an increase in assessments from the previous year where there were only 496 households assessed through the CES system.
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- The HLC implements the local Coordinated Entry using a standardized vulnerability assessment tool, (the Vulnerability Index – Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool, or “VI-SPDAT”) to weight barriers such as length of time spent homeless, chronic health conditions, police contacts, mental illnesses, and substance use disorders among people seeking housing support. During fiscal year 2018-19, approximately 171 families with children, 314 individual adults, and 37 youth were assessed and added to the Coordinated Entry list. The total number of households is around 522, of which 62 (or 12%) self-identified as veterans. Based on VI-SPDAT intervention recommendations, 42% of the total households had a vulnerability score high enough to merit a recommendation for Permanent Supportive Housing. These 220 households and individuals are not currently able to access the type of long-term supportive housing that would best serve them. At this time, only Rapid ReHousing programs are available to accept referrals from the Coordinated Entry System, and due to a shortage of resources, less than 10% of households on the Coordinated Entry list have received housing support. This is a systemic issue that the HLC has continued to attempt to address and work toward building and engaging more programs and resources into the system.
- With the lack of available resources, including housing assistance and programs, it makes it very difficult to have a successful Coordinated Entry System function the way in which it was intended. As noted above, the lack of Permanent Supportive Housing leaves a huge gap in appropriate referrals of those accessing CES.
The Coordinated Entry System (CES) Coordinator not only assisted the HLC in meeting its mandates from HUD but elevated the validity and success of the program.
Since being hired as a contract position in March of 2019, the CES Coordinator supported the efforts of the service providers in increasing number of assessments into the CES system with successful housing placements through the Rapid Rehousing program.