WASHINGTON, DC. New federal investments of $7.4 million in substance abuse treatment and new on-line resources for recovery have been announced by the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Two SAMHSA competitive programs will improve and replicate systems of care; applications are due in late March. Strengthening Treatment Access and Retention - State Implementation (STAR-SI) makes available $2.2 million to states that want to implement system changes that create improvements in access to and retention in outpatient substance abuse treatment. Family Centered Substance Abuse Treatment Grants for Adolescents and their Families will award $5.2 million to nonprofit or government entities with proven approaches to adolescent treatment that include families as an integral part of the treatment process. SAMHSA Administrator Charles Curie is pictured here.

Eligible applicants for up to seven projected awards totaling $2.2 million under Strengthening Treatment Access and Retention - State Implementation (STAR-SI) include states, the District of Columbia, territories, federally recognized tribes, and tribal organizations. Cost sharing is not required, and applications are due by March 24, 2006.

According to SAMHSA, outpatient treatment facilities account for 80 percent of all substance abuse treatment programs in the United States and serve 89 percent of the 1.1 million clients in care on any day. Outpatient treatment providers face tremendous challenges in their efforts to serve populations in need of treatment. States are in a unique position to create system change by working together with outpatient substance abuse treatment providers to remove systems barriers, streamline administrative procedures, provide incentives and assist provider networks in their efforts to improve access and retention performance outcomes.

Family Centered Substance Abuse Treatment Grants for Adolescents and their Families will fund up to 17 awards for up to $300,000 per year in total costs (direct and indirect) for up to three years. No match is required. Eligible applicants are domestic public and private nonprofit entities including, for example, state and local governments; federally recognized tribes; state recognized tribes, urban Indian organizations; public or private universities and colleges; and community- and faith-based organizations. Applications are due by March 29, 2006.

Applications are available by calling SAMHSA's clearinghouse at 1-800-729-6686, or by downloading from www.Grants.gov or www.SAMHSA.gov. Applicants are encouraged to apply on line using www.Grants.gov.

Partners in Recovery is the new SAMHSA website dedicated to the advancement of prevention, treatment and recovery from substance use and mental health disorders, intended to facilitate communication and resource-sharing for organizations and groups that help individuals and families achieve and maintain recovery. The site features news and documents on recovery, collaboration, stigma reduction, workforce development and leadership development. These topics have been identified by national leaders as the most important and compelling issues for the growth and advancement of treatment and recovery across the country, and further SAMHSA's mission to build resilience and facilitate recovery for people with or at risk for alcohol and drug problems and mental illness. The site is: www.pfr.samhsa.gov

CONCORD, NC. 100 federal, state, and local officials, providers, and members of the community convened in Concord, North Carolina, last week for a regional forum on homelessness, housing, and policy issues keynoted by United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) Executive Director Philip Mangano. The forum included Cabarrus, Davidson, Rowan, Stanly, and Union Counties and was hosted by the Piedmont Regional Continuum of Care (PRCoC) and by Piedmont Behavioral Healthcare (PBH).

United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Greensboro Field Office Director Ed Ellis also presented a check for $672,612 to the region during the event, representing the most recent award of HUD homeless resources to the area.

Partnership was in evidence in the range of public and non-profit sector presenters who were present: HUD Office Director Ellis, United States Department of Agriculture Area Director Randy Gore, North Carolina's State point person on homelessness Martha Are, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services' Kay Johnson and Glenn Silver, North Carolina Housing Finance Agency's Supportive Housing Team Leader Mary Reca Todd, and Federal Home Loan Bank Assistant Vice-President Kris Lefever, North Carolina Housing Coalition Executive Director Chris Estes, North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness Director Denise Neunaber, and Arc of North Carolina's Director of Housing Joy Savage.

Forum partners sought to "look at what steps can be taken, what resources are available, and what we all can do to help develop affordable housing and services for those individuals and families living in our region who are most in need," said Piedmont Regional Continuum of Care Chair Jim Curtin.

Pictured here during the presentation of the HUD award are (left to right): Interagency Council Regional Coordinator Michael German, HUD's Ed Ellis, Jenny Michael, Office of Senator Elizabeth Dole, Council Director Mangano, PRCoC's Jim Curtin, Vice Chair and Community Link Executive Director Floyd Davis, Love Center Director Dr. Ronald Hash, PBH Deputy Area Director Pam Shipman, and NC Housing Coalition Executive Director Chris Estes.

While in North Carolina, Director Mangano also joined State point person Martha Are to meet with Rocky Mount Mayor Frederick Turnage, Edgecombe County Chairman Charlie Harrell and Nash County Chairman Claude Mayo to discuss federal initiatives to end chronic homelessness and the importance of the 10-year planning process. North Carolina's state initiatives includes the point person on homelessness, jointly supported by the state Departments of Health and Human Services, Corrections, and Housing. Director Mangano and Regional Coordinator German joined Ms. Are in meeting with North Carolina Department of Corrections Chief Deputy Secretary Dan Steineke in Raleigh.

CHICAGO, IL. "We are definitely headed in the right direction. Our homeless system today is dramatically different from 2002," said Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (pictured here) last week as he reported "steady progress" in the city's 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness. In the past year, the City helped 5,775 households avoid the shelter system through prevention strategies, twice as many as in 2003.

The City has begun the gradual shift from a shelter-based system to a housing based system; 1,948 emergency shelter beds have been phased out and replaced by 1,303 permanent supportive housing units and 1,497 interim units where residents stay for up to 120 days.

Chicago's Plan to End Homelessness, which Mayor Daley endorsed three years ago, includes increased efforts to prevent homelessness by providing job training, social services, financial assistance, and counseling to individuals and families in danger of losing their homes. It also calls for moving homeless people into permanent housing with "wraparound" services as rapidly as possible. "One of the things we have found in the shelter system is that people take up residency in a shelter and end up staying for extended periods of time," said Ellen Sahli, the Mayor's liaison for homelessness. "Problems can best be addressed in the stability of housing," she said.

The city's Low Income Housing Trust Fund will receive $10 million this year in new state funding. Half the money will be earmarked for the Plan to End Homelessness, and the other half to provide rent subsidies for more than 2,000 additional households. The Fund will receive another $5 million over the next five years from the city's lease of the Chicago Skyway toll bridge to a private company. That money will be used to provide permanent housing for 100 families experiencing homelessness through the Street to Home Initiative. It will also support a new program to enable a non-profit organization to lease an entire apartment building and rent the units to individuals who are homeless.

Other reported results include:

• Received funding commitments to permanently house 269 people experiencing chronic homelessness, an estimated 22% of Chicago's chronically homeless population.
• Initiated the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), a technology that will assist in the coordination of services and improve data collection of homeless persons.
• Launched a faith Based Initiative to increase the involvement of faith based and community organizations in the Plan to End Homelessness.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. Momentum for partnership and results continues in The Golden State, where several California cities and counties have recently formed a collaborative partnership to support their city initiatives to end chronic homelessness. California Keys was conceived by the 10- Year Plan Leadership Council in San Diego, and the resulting new state-wide group is co-chaired by 10-Year Plan leaders Angela Alioto and Dene Oliver from San Francisco and San Diego, respectively. California Keys is open to all California communities who are engaged in, or who plan to engage in, 10-Year Plans to End Homelessness, and 17 attended the recent meeting in San Francisco: representatives from the counties of Los Angeles, Marin, Merced, Orange, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, and Santa Clara, and the cities of Berkeley, Long Beach, Oakland, Oxnard, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose.

"The national partnership to end chronic homelessness continues to grow with examples of replicable technologies for jurisdictional planning leaders," commented United States Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director Philip Mangano. Council Region IX Coordinator Ed Cabrera, who attended the meeting last week in San Francisco, noted: "In the Golden State, California Keys is the vehicle to make collaborative partnership a reality."

Goals set by Keys include promoting the development of a State Plan for ending homelessness, gaining state endorsement for local 10-Year Plans, and compiling and presenting results, outcomes and accomplishments from local communities to the Governor, state legislature, and other elected officials. The group also intends to pursue state funding dedicated to ending chronic homelessness.

California Keys will meet bi-monthly, alternating between Northern and Southern California locations. The next meeting will be in Santa Barbara on March 10th.

With this issue of the e-news, we continue our coverage of excerpts from statements made by public sector partners ending chronic homelessness. These Words of the Week come from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who last week gave a progress report on Chicago's 10-Year Plan.

. . . When I consider the progress we've made - and the depth of the commitment of the many individuals and organizations that are a part of this ambitious program - I'm absolutely convinced we'll meet our goal.

. . . Chicago is making steady progress in its program to end homelessness by 2012 by emphasizing prevention and permanent housing.

. . . [We] are definitely . . . headed in the right direction. Our homeless system today is dramatically different from 2002.

WASHINGTON, DC. Wednesday, February 8, 2006 is the registration deadline for the upcoming national conference on the health issues of returning veterans sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). "The Road Home: National Conference on Returning Veterans' and Their Families' Behavioral Health," will convene federal, state, public and private sector partners for a science- based session to address issues facing returning veterans and their families on March 16-18 at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC.

The conference will give Federal, State, and local public and private service providers evidence-based information and approaches that can help veterans and their families build resiliency to prevent and to treat mental health disorders (including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders), substance abuse disorders, suicide, and/or co-occurring disorders.

Representatives of HHS and the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, as well as the National Office of Drug Control Policy and National Institute of Drug Abuse and other partners, including the Interagency Council, will help shape the focus and content for the event.

While the conference is free, space is limited. Registration forms must be received by mail, fax or online no later than February 8. Registrations received after this date will be treated as on-site registrations, which are not guaranteed and processed on a space-available basis.

. . . that the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development's Katrina Disaster Housing Assistance Program - Special Needs (KDHAP-SN) continues to post new information, Q & A, and application materials as it seeks to better serve individuals from the declared disaster areas that were homeless or living in HUD Special Needs housing prior to Hurricane Katrina.

. . . that KDHAP-SN eligible households may relocate to any community in the country.

. . . that in order to receive funds to serve this population, a Continuum of Care must establish a KDHAP-SN Administering Agency (KAA). HUD encourages any Continuum of Care that has not nominated a KAA to consider doing so as soon as possible.

WASHINGTON, DC. WITH THIS ISSUE, the e- newsletter continues its focus on news about the Title V federal surplus property and opportunities to secure resources for homeless programs under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

Title V provides that state and local governments, as well as nonprofit organizations, are eligible to apply for land and buildings that have been determined by the federal government to be "suitable and available" for eligible uses to benefit homeless people. More than two dozen agencies of the federal government are included as "landholding" agencies that may have property. The December 16, 2005, Federal Register listing includes suitable and available properties in California and Nebraska.

Properties are made available on an "as is" basis. Properties are leased without charge, although the homeless organization must pay for operating and repair costs. Depending on the availability of the property, and other factors, surplus properties may also be deeded to the organization. HUD collects information from Federal agencies concerning their unutilized, underutilized, excess and surplus properties and determines which are suitable for use to assist homeless persons. The determination is based on information submitted by the agency controlling the property. The Department of Housing and Urban Development publishes a weekly notice every Friday in the Federal Register listing property determinations and availability. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) handles the application portion of the program. Interested providers should notify HHS of their intention to apply for property within 60 days of the Federal Register notice. Applicants have 90 days after an expression of interest is received by HHS to submit an application. Once an application is complete, HHS acts on it within 25 days. The landholding agency enters into a license, permit, or lease agreement for homeless provider's use of unutilized or underutilized property. HHS handles the lease or deed document for surplus properties.

In the September 13, 2005, full Council meeting, a key federal housing policy development regarding the Title V program and in support of the Administration's goal of ending chronic homelessness was made by United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to Council members: the Department, responding both to the Administration's goal and the needs of communities, will in the future consider permanent supportive housing as an eligible use for federal surplus property under the McKinney-Vento Title V program.

The Department will publish a notice for review and comment to operationalize the change. The policy change will reverse the approach in place since the creation of the property program in 1987, under which eligible uses for surplus property have been emergency shelter, transitional programs, and supportive services. According to HHS, this policy change will expand the options available to communities to better meet the needs of disabled individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness.