SNA Housing Task Force-Direct Service Providers Subgroup

June 3, 2016

Location:Brighton Center

Attendance: Maggie Volkering- City of Covington, Brittany Oakley-NorthKey, Justine Beale-Welcome House, Josh Klosterman-Emergency Shelter of NKY, Melody Brauninger-NorthKey, James Schuetz-NorthKey, Chantelle Phillips-Newport Public Library, Madison Smith-Brighton Center, Cami Phillips-Jobcorps, Paul Trickel-NKY Health Department, Ashley Cremeans-St. Elizabeth Physicians, Shelley Werner-Erlanger Schools, Lori Eifert- Covington Schools, Megan Vonhandorf-Campbell County Schools

  1. Welcome and Introductions
  1. Focus of this group is to provide an opportunity for direct service providers who struggle daily with finding housing for individuals and families tocome together to discuss their tuff cases and learn from each other
  1. Everyone discussed their roles at their agency, what they struggle with, and what resources they currently use.

Barriers/Gaps/ tuff cases:

  1. Public Library sees lots of homeless individuals, mainly men; many of them live under the 417 bridge; They want to know how they can help
  2. Some providers are seeing homeless with pets
  3. Seeing more individuals/families stranded but no agencies/services to help them get back home
  4. Regarding accessing NKY Health Department’s housing program for individuals who are HIV+, agency staff are uncertain of how to find out if their client is HIV+; Paul Trickel agreed that that is a struggle he deals with every day.

Suggestions/Solutions/Options:

  1. Creative Outreach at Library-find agencies that are willing to come to the library to set-up a table and do some outreach;
  2. Create a community board with homeless resources/pamphlets/flyers/etc.
  3. Library can host community meetings
  4. Have library staff go through the Vi-SPDAT Assessment Training; VI-SPDAT is an assessment tool that will be used by all COC HUD funded agencies (not Section 8 or Public Housing) to begin coordinated entry of the homeless to all COC housing programs.
  5. Most HUD funded places have to accept the pet if the pet is deemed a “service animal/therapy animal”. The process is not hard to get the animal deemed a service/therapy animal;
  • Seek out businesses that foster pets/boarding companies and try to partner with them
  1. Local shelter will have the individual stay there and work at one of the local temp agencies that pay daily until they have enough funds to get them back home.
  2. At intake, present a listing or discuss in general the specialized housing programs that clients might be eligible for and hope they will self-report.

Resources Used/Other Information:

  • Most agencies create their own resource listing; everyone will bring in the current resources to be reviewed. This will be worked on by the Resource group.
  • BB & T give free financial literacy classes
  • Josh with the ESNKY puts together a listing of available units in the area every Friday. He is willing to share this information and allow it to be added to the Centralize Housing Resource Guide/Rental Guide
  • JobCorps can help house 16-18 year olds even if addicted as long as they are willing to do trainings, go to school, get a job.
  • Lori Eifert met with City of Covington (Mike Yeager/Jessica Moss/Kim Phillips) regarding the city sharing their landlord listing. They have agreed to send out Lori’s letter to landlords. Lori will keep us updated on this.

Goals

  • The main goal of the SNA Housing Task Force is to increase access to housing and we will do this through:
  • Education and Development
  • Advocacy
  • Resources

Next SNA Housing Task Force Direct Service Providers Meeting:

Friday, July 8, 2016

2:00 PM-3:00 PM

Brighton Center

799 Ann St.

Newport, Ky.41071