GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING - MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

Please mark your calendars for the next Full Membership Meeting on
Friday, 4/18/08!
The meeting will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
At Metropolitan Family Services
222 E. Willow
Wheaton, IL 60187

The next full membership meeting is scheduled for Friday, April 18, 2008 at Metropolitan Family Services from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. The topic is the DuPage Plan to End Homelessness.

Five years ago the DuPage County Homeless Continuum (CoC) joined the national effort dedicated to ending homelessness, by developing the DuPage County 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness (the Plan). DuPage's Plan was among the first nationwide and continues to hold the distinction of being one of only a few plans designed for exclusively suburban places.

The CoC is now at a critical halfway point in the Plan's implementation. As part of ongoing efforts to continually refine the Plan, respond to changing circumstances, and take the Plan to the next level, DuPage County and Continuum leadership contracted with the Mid-America Institute on Poverty (MAIP) of Heartland Alliance to conduct an evaluation of the Plan to date and develop an updated Plan for the next 5 years.

The researchers from MAIP - Amy Rynell and Emily Rosenthal will present their report to the full membership at the April 18th meeting. They will report progress, explore challenges and shortcomings, and measure and celebrate successes. The presentation will include a final evaluation report along with an updated Plan for the remaining 5 years.

A complete agenda will be sent to all Continuum members in March. Please join us for this important meeting!

2008 RANKING CRITERIA

The project ranking criteria that are used to evaluate CDBG and HUD funded projects are reviewed annually by the Grants Funding Committee. There have been changes from the previous Ranking Criteria, most specifically in the areas of HUD eligibility criteria, project outcomes and clients having a source of food, cash income and health care. The most recent Ranking Criteria is available to any interested parties. To receive it, please contact Peg White Lijewski at plijewski@wideopenwest.com.

HOMELESS PREVENTION FUNDING FY 09

The DuPage County Homeless Continuum recognizes that prevention is the first strategic step in addressing homelessness and is well documented as the most cost effective strategy for ending homelessness. Therefore, a coordinated system for distribution of homeless prevention funding to qualifying households, using a small network of agencies throughout DuPage County, has developed over time. All homeless service providers in the County may access these funds for eligible clients. See www.dupagehomeless.org - HomelessPrevention
to obtain the list of agencies providing funds by geographic areas.

The Homeless Prevention Fund in Illinois is expected to be funded at $11 million in FY 09 which is the same amount as FY08. The DuPage Continuum's allocation is projected to remain the same at $ 701,800.

In FY08, the DuPage Continuum developed a joint strategy among Homeless Prevention service providers and coordinated procedures for client accountability and the disbursement of homeless prevention funds. They also completed an RFP process to select grantees and funding amounts for the Continuum's allocation of state Homeless Prevention Funds.

Funding recommendations in FY 08 were based on the following needs and priorities. Four agencies were funded with a stipulation that the fifth agency receive funds through a partnership with one of the established HP providers.

The needs addressed included:

• Eliminating duplication in the town of Carol Stream
• A new initiative in eviction court between DuPage County Community Services and Prairie State Legal Services
• Increased outreach in West Chicago by DuPage County Community Services and "We Go Together for Kids"
• Increased outreach to Addison with a partnership between Outreach Community Ministries and Northeast DuPage Family and Youth Services. $20,000 in funds were specifically reserved for use in Addison through this partnership.

The Leadership Committee of the DuPage Continuum has voted to keep these allocations the same in FY09. This will give the Continuum the opportunity to analyze if the amounts made a difference in helping underserved areas such as Addison and West Chicago and whether all funds have been expended efficiently and effectively.

Funding allocations are:

ONE NIGHT COUNT OF HOMELESS PERSONS

A manual Provider Survey was completed for January 24, 2008 to update the Housing Inventory of beds and units available for emergency shelter, transitional housing and permanent supportive housing in the DuPage Continuum. It is also being used to update the Homeless Populations Chart.

This survey counted the number of homeless persons in shelters, transitional housing and on the street or otherwise not housed.

The manual sheltered population count using the provider survey for the night of January 24, 2008 is being compared to a computerized CMIS report for that night. The Needs Assessment Committee will examine those results.

The unsheltered count of homeless persons in 2007 found a total of 124 persons compared to 19 persons in 2005. While new procedures and more extensive canvassing may account such a significant change, the Continuum is researching street count procedures to ensure that the next count is as accurate as possible. DuPage P.A.D.S., Inc. is taking the lead in developing an evidence based model that will be implemented in the next unsheltered count. Carol Simler, Executive Director, is the contact person for this project. You may reach her at csimler@dupagepads.org

The next unsheltered population count is scheduled for January 2009. The Street Count Committee is beginning its planning efforts now. The co-chairs are Deb Carr of NCO Youth & Family Services and Bob Adams of Midwest Shelter for Veterans. The committee is seeking volunteers. Please contact them directly if you are interested at dcarr@ncoyouth.org or LLNRMA321@aol.com.

THE DUPAGE PLAN TO END HOMELESSNESS

Five years ago the DuPage County Homeless Continuum (DuPage CoC) joined the national effort dedicated to ending homelessness, by developing the DuPage County 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness (the Plan). DuPage's Plan was among the first nationwide and continues to hold the distinction of being one of only a few plans designed for exclusively suburban places. The CoC is now at a critical halfway point in the Plan's implementation. As the current action steps expire at the end of the year, now is a logical and opportune time to evaluate our process thus far and to update action steps to take the Plan to the next level. It is also an opportune moment to add a new layer of sophistication in the measurement and tracking of progress and outcomes - specifically a tenth component to the Plan which will be Evaluation.
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As part of the effort to refine the Plan, respond to changing circumstances, and take the Plan to the next level, DuPage County and the Continuum leadership have contracted with the Mid-America Institute on Poverty (MAIP) of Heartland Alliance to conduct an evaluation of the Plan to date along with an updated PLAN for the remaining 5 years. The evaluation will focus on the progress of the PLAN's nine components to date, successes and challenges of implementation, interaction among PLAN components, assignment of responsibilities, stakeholder engagement and commitment, evaluation and reporting mechanisms, and funding. The update of the PLAN will focus on identifying and quantifying future objectives and action steps and timeframes for moving forward, establishing data collection and reporting procedures to continue evaluation of the updated Plan, assignment of responsibilities, stakeholder engagement and commitment, and funding. The process will report progress, explore challenges and shortcomings, and measure and celebrate successes. Through research, analysis, stakeholder input, interviews, committee meetings, and strategic planning brainstorming sessions, MAIP will produce a final evaluation report along with an updated Plan for the remaining 5 years.

The Mid-America Institute on Poverty (MAIP) was established in 1989 to improve the quality of life for poor and low-income individuals and families. MAIP achieves this through a variety of methods including: conducting research to illuminate issues, evaluating the effectiveness of innovative program models, creating dialogue among players on issues of importance, and developing findings-based policy recommendations.

MAIP has existing expertise and published research on homelessness, supportive housing and other innovative housing models that are included in plans to end homelessness, poverty dimensions, affordable housing issues, and employment programs for isolated and marginalized populations, including substance abusers, people who are homeless, and those with physical and mental health challenges. MAIP has extensive experience evaluating pilot and demonstration programs, in analyzing policies, in documenting and analyzing systems, and in producing final evaluation reports that serve as a means of informing policymakers, program operators, and researchers. Methodologies MAIP has much expertise in implementing include survey research, consumer interviewing, integration of administrative data sets, census analysis, focus groups, case studies, and program observation.

The principal consultants for this project are Amy Rynell and Emily Gerson Rosenthal. You may contact them at massociate5@heartlandalliance.org.

DUPAGE HOMELESS CLIENT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (CMIS)

The DuPage County "C.R.I.S.", Community Resource Information System is a fast and easy way to obtain basic information including admission requirements on over 1,400 social service agencies throughout DuPage County. It includes contact information (day and after hours), eligibility requirements, applicable fees, services offered and location maps. The information can be accessed in two ways: * Telephone - (630) 407-6500, 1-800-942-9412, TDD (630) 407-6502 or * Internet (www.dupagecris.org) On the internet site, consumers can search by subject, agency, and city. They can also obtain information via email at dupagecris@dupageco.org. For social service agencies using the ServicePoint client management information system, they can be linked directly to "C.R.I.S." by clicking ResourcePoint. Now all agencies included in the C.R.I.S. system can do their own updates to the system and keep it current. Each agency has an assigned person, login and password to make changes to their information page.

The DuPage Continuum computerized client management information system has 18 agencies participating in the ServicePoint system. The reporting of client level data is 80% for emergency shelter beds, 93% for transitional housing beds, and 100% for permanent supportive housing beds.

The DuPage Continuum is utilizing the Advanced Reporting Tool (ART) to create custom reports that will meet each agency's particular needs and the Continuum's system wide reporting needs. The DuPage CMIS has 5 licenses for persons who can create reports and 20 viewer licenses which allow other users the ability to use these custom reports. System wide reports that are available include the HUD Annual Progress Report and a Null Field Report. This report monitors data entry and is used by the agencies for quality checks on their data entry. For the Continuum, the Homeless Populations report is complete.

To reduce client duplication, users need to view the top of the client profile page which will show them demographic information that indicates whether they are entering a client already in the system. To reduce duplication of services, Bowman will be adding four fields to the client demographic screen that include agency, funding source, type of assistance and date of service.

In order to ensure the integrity of data entry, the System Administrator has completed data quality checks at each participating agency.

The DuPage CMIS system is currently operating in ServicePoint 4.03. This builds in a report that identifies duplicates by client ID number and allows the oldest record to be deleted. They are planning to upgrade to version 5.0 when it becomes available.

Entering client level data in the HMIS system is mandatory in order to receive HUD Continuum funding or Community Development Block Grant funding. The DuPage County CMIS Administrator is Leslie Grevoy. Please contact her if your agency is not participating and will be applying for funding. Training and hardware are available.

The CMIS Users Group meets monthly, usually in the morning of the second Wednesday. For more information, please contact Leslie at 630- 407-6462.

MAINSTREAM BENEFITS INFORMATION

MAKING THE CONNECTION - QUICK GUIDE TO PUBLIC RESOURCES
A manual of qualifying criteria and contact information for public benefits and supportive services offered by local, state or federal agencies. "Making the Connection Manual" is available to view and download from the Continuum website -
www.dupagehomeless.org
Benefits Updates/Making the Connection

THE HELPER
A quick desk reference guide to agencies in DuPage County providing specific services such as child care, advocacy, employment, etc. The updated 2007 HELPER is available to view and download from the Continuum website. - www.dupagehomeless.org
Benefits Updates/The HELPER

BENEFITS TRAINING
The DuPage Federation for Human Services Reform conducts Making the Connection Basic Benefits Training for human service professionals.

They also conduct specialized training seminars on Public Benefits for a variety of specific segments of the population, i.e. youth, domestic violence victims, immigrants, etc. Advanced topic trainings are available on Public Benefits and Single Adults, Youth up to age 21, Mental Health and Public Benefits, Understanding Spenddown, Understanding Appeals, Domestic Violence and Public Benefits, Immigrants and Putting the Pieces Together.

This training can assist non-profits, schools, faith based organizations, local governments, businesses and health care providers to identify their customers who may be eligible for mainstream benefits and know how to expedite the application process.

A complete 2008 training schedule along with registration information is available at the Continuum website - www.dupagehomeless.org
Benefits Updates/Benefits Training

MEETING CALENDAR

A new calendar of all Continuum committee meetings for the period from July 2007 through July 2008 is available on this website. (Continuum Overview/Calendar)