While cities and states throughout the nation have been adopting 10-year plans to end homelessness, Connecticut has yet to push forward an official plan of its own.
But next Thursday, Dec. 2, a group of advocates for the homeless and state officials will officially kick off a campaign at The Lyceum in Hartford to create 10,000 new homes in the next 10 years to help end chronic homelessness. They hope the state will eventually adopt the plan as part of any future efforts to end homelessness.
The Reaching Home Campaign, coordinated by the affordable housing advocacy group Partnership for Strong Communities, is spearheaded by a steering committee made up of nonprofit housing and service providers, advocacy groups and leaders of various state agencies.
The campaign parallels efforts across the country to focus on providing housing with supportive services to eliminate chronic homelessness.
Diane Randall, director of Partnership for Strong Communities, said the genesis of the campaign came about when a group of about 20 people, including service providers and state officials, traveled to a housing conference in Ohio two years ago.
“The goal of the conference was to talk about what it would take to end chronic homelessness in the U.S.,” said Randall. At the conference, it was estimated that it would take about 150,000 housing units to end chronic homelessness.
Over the next few months, the people who attended the conference came together to form their own plan and eventually came up with the campaign to creative 10,000 units of supportive housing. Supportive housing is permanent, independent and affordable housing combined with on-site or visiting case management and support and employment services.
The group agreed to seek resources to hire staff for the Reaching Home Campaign. “We also agreed we would look to build political and civic support for the notion of supportive housing,” said Randall. “The goal was to engage new leaders.”
The group created a leadership council that includes business leaders, hospital executives and officials from philanthropic organizations who understand that homelessness is a real issue and having been promoting supportive housing an effective solution within their own organizations.
The campaign kickoff comes several months after former Gov. John G. Rowland appointed the Council on Supportive Housing and Homelessness. The council, which is made up of commissioners of various state agencies, have been charged with examining what role their respective agencies could play in preventing and ending homelessness.
Advocates are promoting the Reaching Home Campaign as one solution that the council can adopt, and they’re hoping that the next state budget includes a funding commitment to get at least 1,000 more units built in the coming year.
“Emergency shelters are not the real solution. Housing and services that people need are the real solution,” said Mary McAtee, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, a nonprofit advocacy group that is part of the steering committee behind the Reaching Home Campaign.
About 2,200 housing units have been built over the last six years by nonprofit developers in Connecticut for people who were either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, according to McAtee.
‘Efficient’ Approach
Cities across the country have been adopting plans to end homelessness as part of the Bush administration’s call to end homelessness in 10 years. The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, a federal agency that Bush reactivated two years ago to better coordinate the activities of 20 agencies, has been tracking such activities nationwide.
Fifty governors nationwide have created state interagency councils to end homelessness, and 155 mayors and county executives from cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, San Francisco and Memphis, Tenn., have committed to ending homelessness.
Twenty-four communities in New England committed to formulating plans to end homelessness within 10 years. In Connecticut, officials from communities like New Haven, New Britain, Hartford, Stamford and Norwalk have committed to working on plans to end homelessness, according to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness’ Web site. But so far no cities in the state have publicly released any plans, according to McAtee.
Meanwhile, groups like the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness are not only pushing for more state dollars to ensure that there are enough emergency shelter beds. They’re also urging state leaders to budget for housing and services for the lowest-income people who are either transitioning out of shelters into housing or who may be at risk of becoming homeless.
In addition to participating in the Reaching Home Campaign, the group has been working on a state-funded program called Beyond Shelter that enables shelters and other service agencies to hire housing coordinators to work with people moving out of shelters and into housing.
There are currently five programs across the state – in New Britain, Waterbury, Norwich, Norwalk and Bridgeport – that have housing coordinators. Each program costs $50,000. The Beyond Shelter program has received two rounds of funding from the state, and in fiscal year 2005 was able to get funding to expand the program to three more shelters or service agencies.
The coalition is currently receiving proposals from nonprofit service providers that are interested in participating in the program.
McAtee said the program has been very successful. The housing coordinators are willing to help individuals and families who are transitioning from shelter to housing in any way they can, she said. Some coordinators help obtain furniture for families or help them enroll children in school. One Beyond Shelter program was able to collect private donations to set up a revolving loan fund to help families pay security deposits.
The housing coordinators also work closely with landlords and address any concerns or issues they may have with tenants.
“This kind of approach is very efficient in terms of helping people retain housing,” said McAtee.
The goal is to have 15 Beyond Shelter program operating, said McAtee. With those 15 programs, 500 families could be served simultaneously, which is about a third of the families that are being served in shelters, she said.
