March 1, 2023, The Community Advisory Council on Homelessness

The Community Advisory Council on Homelessness

March 1, 2023

10:00am to 12:00pm

In-Person:

Embarras River Basin Agency, Inc.

404 W Pleasant Street - Office #3

Greenup, IL 62428

Virtual:

WebEx Meeting

Agenda

Welcome & Introductions
1. Community Advisory Council Progress since November 2022 meeting
State Budget News
Public Comment
Rural Homelessness Overview/HUD Unsheltered Homelessness Grant, Perspective of Embarras River Basin Agency and Partner Organizations
HUD Unsheltered Homelessness Grant Chicago CoC News
Update on Racial Equity Roundtable & Listening Sessions
Community Advisory Council Role at March 20th Interagency Task Force Meeting
Community Advisory Council: Policy, Leveraging Resources, and Home Summit Workgroups
1. Sharing from Workgroup Conversation
Closing/Next Steps

Presentations:

Home Illinois FY24 Budget Overview

Meeting Recording:

https://illinois.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/illinois/recording/5ada5a0f9a78103bbdaaea1545730cdf/playback

Meeting Minutes:

Welcome by Debbie Reznick
1. Anniversary of the first CACH meeting
2. Introductions:
  1. Community Advisory Council on Homelessness Members Present:
    1. Brenda O'Connell, Lake County
    2. Christine Haley, Office to Prevent & End Homelessness
    3. Debbie Reznick, Polk Brothers Foundation
    4. Jennifer Hill, Alliance to End Homelessness
    5. Niya Kelly, Legislative Policy for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
    6. Otha Gaston, Lived Experience
    7. Rich Monoccio, Cook County Housing Authority
    8. Richard Rowe, CSH
    9. Sandy Deters, ERBA
    10. Susan Reyna, Covenant House Illinois
    11. Tamela Milan-Alexander, EverThrive Illinois
  2. Partners/Guests Present:
    1. Shanay Young, Housing Assistance Counsel
    2. Kevin Busher, CFS Community Action Agency
    3. David Esposito, Supportive Housing Providers Association
    4. Jonathan Hardwick, Housing Assistance Council
    5. Jess Pauley, Consultant that works with Aruba
    6. Harlie Bunyard, Hope of East Central Illinois
    7. Fred Spannaus, Consultant to CoC is South Central Illinois
    8. Christina Wooley, Douglas County ERBA
    9. Chris Davis, The Haven
    10. Carla Hart
    11. Bob Palmer, Housing Action Illinois
    12. Todd Fuller, IDHS
    13. Nikita Robinson, OPEH
    14. Nichole Sailor, Care Horizon Adult Protective Services
    15. Denise Croft, ERBA- Greenup
    16. Manada LaPorte, Housing Assistance Council
    17. Christine Hammond, DHS OPEH
    18. Betsy Benito, Consultant to Supportive Housing Providers Association
    19. Kelly Denton, CEFS
    20. Teresa Shumate, CEFS
    21. Pam Baker, CEFS
    22. Jonathan Harwitz, Housing Assistance Council
    23. Foluke Akanni, Housing Action Illinois
    24. Honey, Lived Experiece
Debbie - this is a community of people doing meaningful work Agenda review:
1. State budget
2. Public comments
3. Celebrate the rural and unsheltered award for Embarras
4. Unsheltered homelessness grant in Chicago, IL received the largest share grant funding
5. Racial equity roundtable
6. Interagency council meeting
7. Three workgroup breakout sessions to consider the next steps for the groups
  1. Policy
  2. Leveraging resources
  3. Home Illinois Summit
State Budget News, Christine Haley
1. Excited to share more information on the FY24 budget proposal and the governor's proposed budget. Thanks to all for pushing our work forward. Want to uplift Deputy Governor Sol Flores, she was instrumental in this work.
2. FY23 Home IL Accomplishments:
  1. 15 million was allocated for Home Illinois projects
    1. 5.5 million for emergency shelter to address urgent winter shelter needs
    2. Increases to Homeless Prevention Contracts
      1. New program Launches:
        
        IL Board of Higher Education: House Liaisons
        
        Youth Homelessness Prevention Subcommittee - CSH & OPEH
        
        Medical Respite Capacity Building: IL Public Health Institute with National Institute for Medical Respite Care
        
        IL Homeless Technical Assistance & Training Center - SHPA & OPEH
        
        100-day Rural Challenge: Re!nstitute
        
        Rural Strategic Plan: Housing Assistance Council
        
        HUD & OPEH Public Housing Authority Work Group: CSH
        
        Steps to Housing & Statewide Referral Network: High Ground & Leveraging Resources Work Group
        
        June 14th -Home Illinois Summit
        
        TBD: Medicaid billing support, NIMBY training, mainstream benefits training, Evicted exhibit
  2. Research & Pilots
    1. Illinois Task Force on Homelessness & Poverty Commission: Guaranteed Income Pilot: Families in shelter (FY23) & doubled up families (FY24) with Inclusive Economy Lab
    2. OPEH & IL Community College Board: Northeastern IL University - Homeless Workforce Study
    3. IDES: Unemployment insurance & HMIS data match
    4. Racial Equity Roundtable on Black Homelessness: University of Illinois at Chicago - Institute on Research on Race and Public Policy
    5. Homeless Prevention Sources Analysis: Inclusive Economy Lab
    6. Statewide Eviction Dashboard: Inclusive Economy Lab
  3. Activities review is important to keep us grounded on the great work we have been doing. Thank you for your leadership around the drive of this work.
3. Had an opportunity to brief Governor Pritzker on the work of Home Illinois. In that we are really focused on
  1. Change
    1. Narrative change from personal responsibility
  2. Realize
    1. Realizing the vision of the executive order
  3. Convene
    1. Looking at how the state can convene with local jurisdictions, health partners, and private funders
  4. Lead
    1. How do we lead a successful statewide approach.
4. Home Illinois: $125 million in new funding & programs in Governor's proposed budget
  1. New General Revenue Fund
    1. Increase to homeless prevention line item
    2. New shelter diversion program
    3. New scattered site permanent supportive housing program
    4. Services to support people living in Statewide Referral Network units
  2. Leveraging Existing Funding for New Program
    1. Rapid ReHousing program
    2. Workforce development pilot to support unhoused job seekers attain and maintain employment
    3. Street outreach program
    4. Support medical respite programs
    5. Re-entry housing subsidy program
    6. Increase to shelter and services
5. Home Illinois Budget
  1. Review of line items
    1. Some things that were once on multiple lines, they are now on a single line
    2. 2.5M for shelter diversion is the new GRP
    3. A base of 90M plus additional 62M
    4. This is not broken down by population. More generally about shelters and services delivery.
  2. Governor's Budget:
    1. Budget book said it was 218M in FY23 broadly for homeless services programs and FY24 is at 942M. Increase is because of some of the funding from Illinois Housing Development Authority.
6. Discussion:
  1. Question: In the FY23 budget, do we have a sense how much has gone out the door & will it be spent before this fiscal year?
    1. Yes, the goal is for a 100% spent. Strategy is whatever we can't spend that we would increase the amount to the homeless prevention contract.
      1. Is it a way to do accounting on how much has went out the door?
        
        Yes, that would be a follow up item for me to see how much has been spent.
  2. Question: The 2.5 million for reentry, what line item is that?
    1. The 2.5 million has been identified by IDOC as funding that they plan to allocate. It is somewhere as a part of their base, coming from an existing fund, but can follow up on the specific line item.
  3. The 12.5 million would create 500 units for new scattered sites permanent support housing at 25 thousand per unit per year for scattered site. We have not finalized the method of distribution.
  4. Question: We do not know geographically where the scattered sites location may be?
    1. Correct, we have not been any decisions made on the distribution or if there will be any geographical target.
  5. The homebased slides are available from the Interagency task force meeting. The link to the presentation can be found on the IDHS website https://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=147382
Rural Homelessness Overview/HUD Unsheltered Homelessness Grant, Perspective of Embarras River Basin Agency and Partner Organizations/ (Sandy Deters)
1. Thank you for the additional funding we have won from the HUD award.
  1. We will us that for additional permanent supportive housing units, helping to pay utilities, and creating a partnership with out housing and counseling housing departments.
2. Our PIT count numbers, the actual number of sheltered individuals went up, and the unsheltered individuals went down. We recently had an additional homeless shelter in Charleston IL open up. Looking forward to the additional funding that will come with that.
3. How is rural homelessness a little different from an urban setting?
  1. Chris Davis from the Haven - we primarily see average 135 - 150 ppl per year.
    1. About 92 of those are within our continuum.
    2. We see primarily individuals who come from poverty and have slipped through the cracks. Our goal is to help them to recover.
    3. Erba has sent case managers from their agency to come directly deal with rapidly rehouse them. The coordination between our agencies have been fantastic.
    4. A lot of addiction in this area. Work with addition specialist but we need more resources there.
    5. Watching people come from poverty and to helping them to overcome difficulties, lack of education and social stigmas.
    6. Have seen that a lot of youth that are homeless. Over the last 3 months, working a youth and paired him with a counselor who has helped him through a counseling grant.
    7. Seeing more people with disabilities, and not a lot of places for this population to go. We house men, women, families all in the same congregate setting. Seeing more single mothers, with a lack of education, are homeless.
      1. Difficult to getting them rehoused. Very dedicated to trying to help these individuals also.
4. Honey, a person with lived experienced.
  1. First time I became homeless, I was at work and got a call that my house was on fire. It burnt down. Didn't want to tell anyone at work that I was homeless. Red cross stepped in. ERBA or CEFS came to offer help.
    1. I was placed in a trailer with my two kids from a motel room.
  2. The second time I was homeless, I never reached out for help because it was a domestic violence issue.
  3. Telling people that you are homeless doesn't happen. Word needs to be out there on how to access resources.
    1. Can be any situation, judgement needs to go away and help to come out. When you think that it's not going to happen to you, that's when it will happen.
    2. Would have likely been a part of the statistics without the help.
5. Kevin with CFS - Rural homelessness, we are seeing an increase in preventing homelessness.
  1. Food deserts, transportation issues (lack of public transportation), childcare issues affect homelessness.
    1. Lack of childcare providers, single mother if you can't find childcare you can't work.
    2. We have 18 counties. Indiana border to almost Missouri, south as far as Jasper, north to Christian/ Montgomery County. Huge array and a vast part of the state.
6. Rural homeless compared to urban, you have people who congregate together in urban; it's more visual. In the rural setting, finding the homeless individuals is hard. It is hard to go to them because they are not as visible.
7. Shanay: Housing Assistance Council is working with the state to collect information about the rural homelessness in Illinois. Goal is to collect as much data as we can. Looking to survey the whole state, want to see how to help, strategies to eliminate homelessness, and to provide infographics.
8. Jonathon, HAC: inspired and daunted by the project we are taking on. Inspired by the work that everyone is doing.
  1. The role that HAC is playing is to suspend the moral judgement of how people got there.
  2. We are here to partner with SHPA and IDHS to taking limited resources. The reality is on the federal level, it won't be a ton of new resource.
    1. Doubling down on how to make the best of the resources that we have now. We will be collecting data, not just data points. There was no point in time count 20 years ago, no data was available. We will be conducting listening sessions.
    2. When working on the Hill we heard some of the various ways that rural homelessness is different. This is great work that you all have been doing. Working with you to refine the tools that you have.
    3. Will have policy recommendations and will be presenting at the June at a Summit.
9. Manada La Porte, HAC - looking forward to partnering with you all.
10. Shanay - Housing Assistance Council, is located in DC. We work with non-profits in rural areas only. We provide technical assistance in capacity building in rural non-profits.
11. Lance George, HAC - Looking forward to this opportunity and engagement.
12. David Esposito - We have heard that rural homelessness is different and need a specific strategy to address rural homelessness. Happy to be working with Reinstitute & HAC. Be on the lookout for ways to participate in person. Working on scheduling listening sessions and feedback sessions.
13. Question: Are there resources for families seeking direct links to housing support? Who are doubled up?
  1. Answer: We have different outreach offices in all of our counties that they can contact. They can contact the coordinated entry.
    1. Would love to be able to share the Incredible number of resources available at EverThrive.
14. Question: ERBA crosses a few of the IDD Independent Service Coordination Agencies - who are interested in coordinating on homelessness prevention options and housing navigation, hopefully you are connected?
  1. I do not believe so, but we will reach out to Betsy about that.
15. HUD Unsheltered Homelessness Grant Chicago CoC News
  1. The City of Chicago also received from the same federal grant program from HUD that was talked about this morning. They received a grant for unsheltered homelessness that will enable the creation of new coordinated outreach teams that have a range of clinical expertise. They will have new units of transitional housing and 700 new units of supportive and rapid rehousing.
16. Update on Racial Equity Roundtable & Listening Sessions
  1. Racial equity roundtable on Black homelessness has begun and we wanted to share some of the work that has been done.
    1. Richard Rowe - We had an opportunity to meet and talked about how we were showing our interest in terms of doing this work. In the conversation, the theme was to get at the root causes of homelessness, especially as it relates to people of color.
      1. We did our breakout sessions to get to know each other better. Really interesting to me because it is really near and dear to me. This meeting focused on digging at the root causes. I feel empowered to figure out why people are in poverty and developing a playbook to address these complex issues.
    2. Christine Haley- We engaged the University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Research and Public Policy (IRRPP) to engage the roundtable. The roundtable will create an action plan that is targeted to state government. We are targeting a small number of meaningful recommendations that can be given to the task force to implement. The roundtable members include leadership from service providers, statewide advocates, foundation representation, national representatives, mayor of Peoria, statewide representation, etc. IRRPP will do a data analysis will be done to help inform the recommendations that the roundtable makes.
Community Advisory Council Role at the March 20th Interagency Task Force Meeting
1. Interagency task force attendance - we did not come to decision on how we want to work with and engage with the IITF. We have not interacted with them directly, want to think through the ideas, presentation for them. Debbie will follow up with more information. The March 20th meeting will have a focus on incarceration. If we have resources that would beneficial.
Community Advisory Council: Policy, Leveraging Resources, and Home Summit Workgroups
1. Policy - Niya Kelly
2. Leveraging Resources - Brenda O'Connell
3. Home Summit - Betsy Benito
4. Sharing from Workgroup Conversation
  1. We would like a quick update from each group on what your next steps will be:
  2. Policy Group, our group discussed that we are creating a feedback loop with departments within the interagency task force, service providers, and persons with lived experiences. We want to learn more about legislation and providing feedback. We want people to be able to the learn more on state government and how they can be engaged in this work. First meeting will be in April likely. Maybe meeting with IDHA; wanting to have a conversation with them.
  3. Leveraging Resource Group, we talked about how we help to connect the homelessness crisis system to other state agencies. First task will be creating a person designed approach from homelessness to being connected with housing. Specifically using the statewide referral network as our first example. We are meeting March 24th. Will identify what questions we need to ask, what data do we have already, and who we will ask the questions to. Will create a map to identify some improvement areas.
  4. Summit Group, we talked about initial themes of the summit. We want to use the time to close the gap between those experiencing homelessness. Anything this group does; we would want to get the broader feedback on how it will tie into the Summit. Idea is to use the summit to uplift the work that has been going on. Using time to draw out panels of people and those with lived experience. Meeting 1 to 2 times per month and will come back to all for feedback.
Closing/ Next Steps
1. Appreciated hearing from Honey. Thanks to ERBA for hosting us today.
2. Our next meeting will be at the Summit which will be June 14th.
3. Meeting adjourned.