Improving access to and navigation of human services across the region for people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity will help to ensure services are matched with the housing resources being built out across the region
Access to and the navigation of human services, while experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity was identified as a major barrier to regionally ending homelessness. It most often shows up in accessing and navigating public benefits, substance abuse services and mental health services. As new housing investments become available across the region, it will be critical to ensure that people navigating these housing resources have the human services they may want and need. The work to improve human services should be directly connected to the system modeling and investment planning efforts, to ensure that the housing and service strategies are linked.. The regional kitchen table should hold the planning and strategy for both because moving to a more person-centered approach to administering public benefits across county lines and addressing the inequity of substance abuse and mental health resources across counties in the region is critical to the long term goal of housing justice.
Strategies for Proposed Action 3 include:
- Utilize a person-centered approach to public benefits, particularly in accessing and transferring benefits, in order to ensure that county boundaries have no effect on obtaining and maintaining the public benefits needed to maintain housing and ensure food security
- Address equitable access to services, particularly quality behavioral health and substance abuse services, to ensure that people have access to the supports needed to live in the place and community of their choice
Moving to a person-centered approach, particularly in accessing and transferring benefits, will help to ensure that county boundaries have no effect on obtaining and maintaining the public benefits needed to maintain housing and ensure food security.
As outlined in the system audit findings, accessing and transferring the administration across county offices of public benefits such as SNAP, MFIP, Emergency Assistance, and Housing Supports benefits can be a major burden for people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity as they may move at higher rates. As indicated by 2019 Department of Human Services data, close to 14,000 people who had ever experienced homelessness in the metro area moved across one county line with their benefits, 56% of those movers had experienced homelessness in the 2019 data year. Much smaller numbers of individuals moved across 2 or more county lines in a year with benefits but the percentage of those who did move that often who had experienced homelessness grew higher the more moves recorded. The most common benefits individuals experiencing homelessness are moving with include SNAPS and MFIP, two critical public benefits that help with food and economic security critical to individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
For these 14,000 households a year it is critical that the counties and state partner to implement a more person-centered approach to accessing and transferring the administration of public benefits. An interruption or loss in benefits can result in a crisis for people already experiencing homelessness or housing instability and the added trauma of re-applying and navigating a complex system can make the trauma of experiencing homelessness that much worse.
The regional kitchen table can offer the structure for bringing together the diverse set of stakeholders and political advocacy that will be needed to take action.
Person-Centered Strategies
Fully fund and implement electronic universal applications for public benefits and electronic file transfers across county human service offices
The state is currently working on technology pilots connected to certain public benefits to increase the ability to more rapidly apply virtually. These efforts could be built upon with a fully-funded technology effort by the state legislature to make the application and transfer of the administration of public benefits across any county lines more accessible and streamlined. This would help to ensure that people moving around the region to access shelter or other housing options could apply for all public benefits through one universal application from anywhere in the region, including any county human services office in the region. It would also help to ensure that they could maintain public benefits when moving by simply submitting a new address and having the files transferred to the new county human services.
Explore changes to state laws on the county of financial responsibility to ensure people moving to access shelter or other housing options are not lost in the transfer process
Possible changes could include lengthening the amount of time before a person has to transfer the administration of their benefits to a new county upon moving; creating a state-administered pool that allows people moving to access shelter or housing the ability to have the public benefits directly administered by the state until they have stabilized their housing in a county of residence; and improving the process in which DHS intervenes when counties are contesting county of residence. These changes would require state law changes and should be further explored and compared with any current efforts underway at the state office.
Dedicate state funds to counties to fully staff and train county financial services workers
County Human Services offices must find funds to hire county workers to process and administer public benefits. There are often far too few workers leading to long wait times for appointments, slow processing of applications and transfers, and large caseloads that contribute to harmful experiences by people experiencing homelessness. State dedicated funds to ensure that counties could have full staff and could offer comprehensive training on trauma informed care and other person centered approaches could greatly improve the experiences of people on public benefits.
Reduce barriers to continuing benefits
As proposed in recent administration proposals and by leadership at DHS, public benefits re-verification should move to every six months allowing for a longer time to maintain benefits without the burden of continual re-certification. This recommendation was also proposed in a state report on improving the health of people living in deep poverty. The state should also consider continuing flexibilities that were offered during COVID-19, including virtual case management meetings and virtual document verification. Although technology can be a barrier for experiencing homelessness, it is often less of a barrier than traveling far distances from encampments, shelters, or housing across the region as they are experiencing homelessness and the access to technology is something that can more easily be addressed by homeless serving programs.
Addressing equitable access to services, particularly quality behavioral health and substance abuse services, will help to ensure that people have access to the supports needed to live in the place and community of their choice.
As described in the system audit findings there are vast disparities in access to quality person-centered behavioral health and substance abuse services across the region, particularly for those experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity. Ensuring access to these quality services is essential to the success of the homelessness response for those who are in need of behavioral health and substance abuse services; optional, quality services connected to housing are a documented best practice in addressing homelessness.
The region needs a more concerted effort to understand the need, cost, and funding strategies that can improve access to quality person-centered services, particularly for BIPOC and LGBTQ communities.
Strategies to Address Equitable Access
Conduct a cost analysis to public systems (hospitals, corrections, shelter programs, child welfare, and other human services) of high utilizers who experience homelessness across the region to better understand cost in the region
The region should start with any more localized studies conducted and build to a full regional understanding of the cost to public systems in the region. Better understanding which public systems are bearing the cost related to untreated behavioral health and substance abuse issues will allow for better partnerships across systems to improve access to these critical services. And doing this study from a racially explicit lens will help to understand the race disparity and the racially explicit strategies that may be needed to address the disparities. When conducting the study it will be critical for the regional kitchen table to bring in state and county corrections and child welfare agencies and the public and private hospital systems, all of which serve people who become entangled in the systems due to lack of access to substance abuse and behavioral health services, and all of which are discharging people with mental health and substance abuse needs into homelessness.
Analyze cost-sharing proposals throughout the region with a power analysis to understand the authority and roles in implementing the proposals
Human Service leaders in the region should analyze any existing cost-sharing proposal in the region to better understand past work done to address cost burdens across the system and build out behavioral health and substance abuse services. That analysis should include a power analysis to understand who has the authority and funding to act and what roles different system leaders and elected officials may need to play. After the analysis of existing proposals, the kitchen table should convene to explore new proposals to ensure that each county in the region has an approach to building out more quality services that are explicitly geared at best serving BIPOC and LGBTQ communities.
Ensure that the substance abuse and behavioral health services are paired with the supports needed to improve access by people experiencing homelessness
As the region builds out these clinical services it will be critical that the supports are connected to ensure access and sustained success. These supports should include transportation, technology (for those who prefer virtual sessions), child care, peer-support workers, and case management. People experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity face immense challenges in accessing these types of support which is directly linked to lower access and engagement in clinical services. These support should be offered for the length of time necessary to be successful, including for a minimum of a year after a person has been stably housed, to ensure continued success. These types of support can often be offered through homelessness and housing programs; another reason it will be critical for the regional kitchen table to link this planning to the system modeling and investment planning discussed in Proposed Action 2.
It will also be critical to specialize these types of supports for specific sub-populations. See resource section below for considerations on different sub-populations.
Begin to pilot existing community generated ideas that will increase equitable access to substance abuse and behavioral services and the support
In addition to the deeper cost-sharing proposals developed and/or enacted across the public system, there are other existing ideas that were discussed in interviews conducted as part of the Blueprint creation. The regional kitchen table should begin to explore the feasibility of these community proposals and work to pilot those assessed to be viable and to have the potential community impact. Examples of additional supports that would increase access to services for specific subpopulations.
Strategy 2: Address Equitable Access to Services
Ideas for equitable access that were generated by the region.
Youth and Young Adults with Child Welfare Involvement
- Transition-based services that are voluntary, offer needed life skills, and offer supports up to the age of 26
- Connection back to the resources they qualify for due to previous child welfare involvement included extended foster care, housing supports, and transition services
- Connections to youth serving agencies, particularly those that are LGBTQ and BIPOC operated
Families with Child Welfare Involvement
- Support to overcome child welfare agency barriers around receiving housing after child has been removed – see resource list for example of child welfare and permanent supportive housing partnership helping to overcome these barriers
- Ensuring families have the legal support needed to overcome barriers to access housing and services due to child welfare involvement – this includes barriers around medical health benefits, housing assistance, child care, and employment
- Case management support to ensure coordination between clinical services and the child welfare system
Persons with History of Criminal System Involvement
- Ensuring individuals have the legal support needed to overcome barriers to access housing and services due to criminal system involvement – this includes barriers around medical health benefits, housing assistance, child care, and employment
More information on community generated ideas
State grant fund for civil commitment aftercare that re-purposes collected county funds surrounding civil commitments. Allowing for the county dollars paid to the state for civil commitment costs, including the daily bed costs when someone is ready for release but the county struggles to find placement, be put into a state grant fund as opposed to back to general funds. Counties could apply for the state grant to build out more comprehensive substance abuse and behavioral health services that could help to avoid civil commitments or prolonged commitments.
Private/Public partnership to build community-based organizations led by BIPOC and LGBTQ. Developing capacity building funds for BIPOC and LGBTQ-led organizations could assist in getting them the ability to receive and administer state and federal funds, including Medicaid and Medicare. Building the capacity of these organizations directly impacts racial and LGBTQ equity by ensuring better access in communities of choice providers who match identities.
Universal access portal across the region for behavioral health and substance abuse services. Investing in a high functioning portal that offered access to any behavioral health or substance abuse services a person may qualify for in the region could greatly increase access. This idea was generated at a community workshop by multiple stakeholder groups and it is worth further exploration by the regional kitchen table.
- The Innovative Models in Health and Housing brief, prepared by Mercy Housing and the Low Income Investment Fund for the California Endowment and the Kresge Foundation.
- Starting as a pilot project funded by the Melville Trust, Secure Jobs Connecticut 2.0 works across the CoC and the public workforce system to increase employment opportunities for people experiencing homelessness. The model includes job navigators, network building with employers and other services, flex funding for transportation, childcare and other services, and case conferencing across systems.
- One Roof is a promising practice bringing together the child welfare system, homeless response system, and affordable housing behind the unifying goal of creating supportive housing for child welfare involved families. Their 8 Step Roadmap to partnership offers a framework for partnering, goal setting, and implementing cross-system initiatives.