In this Issue
- Are You Ready for October?
- Milwaukee Providers - HMIS Workgroup Special Items
- Video: 2016 Data Standards Sneak Preview
- Tips and Tricks
Are You Ready for October?
The month of October is the busiest time of the year for HMIS and reporting. Here are the relevant events occurring during the month that will impact you depending up on the type of programs and grants your organization receives:
- HMIS data collection updates
- Beginning of Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) period
- Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) repository annual reporting
- PATH street outreach quarterly reporting
- Supportive Services for Veterans and their Families (SSVF) monthly reporting
As always, if you need assistance with your data and reporting please reach out to your regional coordinator as needed. If you are unsure who your regional coordinator is, please refer to this map: http://www.icalliances.org/wisconsin-system-administrators.
Milwaukee Providers - HMIS Workgroup Special Items
The HMIS Workgroup has started meeting on a monthly basis once again. Special items to pay attention to:
- ETH has a new reporting method, please refer to the ICA website for the recording and new procedures for which to run the report.
- All Emergency Shelter, Transitional Housing and Permanent Housing programs should begin running their AHAR reports and make all necessary corrections no later than 10/15/2016. Cheat sheets were provided to the group on how to run the multiple required reports; please contact Nancy for assistance.
- ALL providers (with the exception of TH and PSH) are asked to fill out at least 5-10 VISPDAT assessments with clients for this month. The HMIS workgroup will review at the next meeting and discuss the process as well as any issues providers encountered. This will assist both Coordinated Entry as well as the Chronic Homeless Initiative that is set to kick off 10/1/2016.
- Any programs that have ended MUST be reflected in the HIC. Please contact Nancy to provide end dates of programs so that she can make the updates in ServicePoint
- If there are any NEW programs, those must also be created with Nancy.
- In an effort to stay consistent, please ensure providers are clearing up the “Outstanding Referrals” within ServicePoint. This will give Coordinated Entry a better idea of how many clients are being served versus being referred. No one should be contacting CE to delete referrals.
- All Ban lists MUST be uploaded into ServicePoint as this is the list CE uses to refer clients. If the client does not appear on the list, they will be referred to the specific shelter.
- Provider records should be updated in ServicePoint with contact information. This will allow a better workflow.
- All active clients (as of 9/10/2016) should have a case manager specified in their ServicePoint record. This will prove to be beneficial now that the Chronic Homeless Initiative is set to begin as well as prove to be useful when a provider is seeking information regarding a specific client.
- And LAST but certainly NOT least. This month’s SUPERSTARS are as follows:
Cathedral Center Overflow Emergency Shelter(9288)
Cathedral Center Rapid Re-Housing Program(9104)
Community Advocates Autumn West Permanent Housing(8698)
Community Advocates Family Support Center - Emergency Shelter(5090)
Community Advocates Rapid Re-Housing Program(9155)
CVI Milwaukee SSVF Program(8893)
CVI Milwaukee Vets Manor(8891)
CVI Milwaukee VETS Place Central SRO Permanent Housing(7709)
CVI Milwaukee Vets Place North SRO Permanent Housing(8889)
Guest House of Milwaukee HomeLinc III PSH(7863)
Guest House of Milwaukee HomeLinc IV PSH(9520)
Guest House of Milwaukee HomeLinc V PSH(9622)
Guest House of Milwaukee Prairie Apartments PSH(8623)
Hope House of Milwaukee Johnston Center Mercy CH(8822)
Hope House of Milwaukee Rapid Re-Housing(9145)
Hope House of Milwaukee SRO(7794)
Hope House of Milwaukee SRO as SSO for APR Data(9048)
Meta House Bremen TH 1(7541)
Meta House First Street PSH 3(7743)
Meta House Locust TH 2(7742)
Milwaukee County Heartland Housing(8881)
Milwaukee County Housing First Initiative Outreach(9856)
Milwaukee County Housing First Initiative SSO(9626)
Milwaukee County Mercy Housing(8536)
Milwaukee County Pathways Safe Haven Program(9945)
Milwaukee County Safe Haven Program(7660)
Outreach Community Health Center PATH Program(8472)
St. Catherine Residence(7694)
The Salvation Army of Milwaukee(1408)
The Salvation Army of Milwaukee - Rapid Re-housing Financial Assistance(9751)
The Salvation Army of Milwaukee - ROOTS(8696)
The Salvation Army of Milwaukee - Winterstar(8229)
Click on the image to play the video
Tips and Tricks
Moving one PSH client to another PSH program
The following Q&A is from the HUD Exchange.
What would be the process of switching a client from one PSH to another PSH leasing project? If a participant failed (landlord eviction, etc) in one unit the project was able to secure, and the project is not able to secure a unit for the participant but there is an opportunity in a different PSH project that this participant can be accepted into. How can the person be exited and entered into a new project? Just simple discharge and intake process that we normally follow? Or is there a special requirement? Thank you.
Response:
Thank you for your question.
First, be aware that an individual or family that is being evicted from their current housing may continue to be served in permanent supportive housing (PSH) by the current housing provider or may be transferred to another provider's PSH program. This is because eviction from housing is not the same as termination from the program. Furthermore, the CoC interim rule states that to be permanent housing, the program participant must be the tenant on a lease for a term of at least one year, which is renewable for terms that are a minimum of one month long, and is terminable only for cause.
To answer your question, yes--under the CoC Program, program participants may be transferred from one CoC funded permanent supportive housing (PSH) project to another CoC funded PSH project. If the program participant is transferred, please observe the following guidelines that are outlined below.
If the program participant believes his/her needs will be better met by another permanent supportive housing project and transfers to another program, recipients or sub-recipients accepting program participants from other permanent supportive housing projects must keep records on file demonstrating that the individual or family is (1) transferring from another permanent supportive housing project; (2) the reason for the transfer; and (3) met the eligibility requirements for permanent supportive housing prior to entering the original permanent supportive housing project.
As a reminder, within the CoC Program, once an eligible household is placed in permanent supportive housing, the household does not retain their homeless or chronically homeless status. However, under the CoC Program, permanent supportive housing projects may serve individuals and families from other permanent supportive housing projects as long as program participants originally met the eligibility requirements for the PSH project to which they are transferring at the time they entered their initial PSH project (Section 423(f) of the McKinney-Vento Act, as amended by the HEARTH Act). This means that an individual or family may transfer from one permanent supportive housing program to another under the CoC Program. This could occur if there were another permanent supportive housing program that better met the service needs of the program participant.
Be aware, permanent supportive housing is intended to be PERMANENT and with no time limits and is intended to target disabled persons that are literally homeless that have not been successful at maintaining permanent housing on their own. A PSH recipient cannot determine when a program participant is "ready" to be transferred or exited from a program. If a program participant believes that they are ready and indicate that they would like to move on, recipients can work with the program participant to transition out of the project.
As far as the HMIS records, since the person is actually exiting one project and entering another PSH project, you should follow the usual discharge and intake process. We recognize that certain circumstances can arise where project eligibility requirements and data collection requirements in HMIS do not always perfectly align. The case where a client retains his or her eligibility for a permanent housing project dedicated to serving the chronically homeless due to a transfer from one PSH to another is one of them. The client's residence prior to project entry (a permanent housing situation) might flag the client as potentially ineligible in a report. At this time, however, data entry in HMIS should comport with the instructions provided in the HMIS data standards. When entering the new permanent supportive housing project, the HMIS should reflect the actual prior living situation (i.e. in data elements 3.9 and 3.17, or the combined data element 3.917 effective 10/1/16), even though this might flag the client as potentially ineligible for the project. Documentation of continued eligibility for the new PSH project should be retained on file for the client for monitoring purposes and as backup to explain the apparent discrepancy in the HMIS record.
Please note: the response provided in this email is specific to the question you submitted and may not apply to similar questions. Therefore, please use discretion in providing the response to others, as the answer may not apply to their particular situations.