Stating that "Just providing a bed and a sandwich for someone is not a solution," Hartford, Connecticut, Mayor Eddie Perez this week kicked off his city's 10- Year Plan by naming Bank of America of Connecticut President Susan Rottner and Hartford Archbishop Henry Mansell to lead the planning process. Joining Mayor Perez for the announcement - characterized by the Hartford Courant as bringing the "gravitas of faith and finance" to the process - at Hartford's Mercy Housing and Shelter Corporation were United States Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director Philip Mangano, Hartford Department of Housing and Urban Development Field Office Director Julie Fagan, and Council Region I Coordinator John O'Brien.

"Why is Hartford's plan so important? Because there are far more Hartford's in our country than New York's and LA's," stated Director Mangano. "Your plan will be a model for scores of cities that have yet to begin. In assembling the team to get this job done the Mayor has taken the time to get it right for Hartford. He promised that he would move forward when the right people were in place and committed. That's just what he's done in a thoughtful, deliberate, planful process." Pictured here are (left to right): Director Mangano, Ms. Rottner, Mayor Perez, and Archbishop Mansell.

Mayor Perez charged the planners with developing a Regional Plan, identifying innovative/best practice models to serve persons who are chronically homeless outside of the emergency shelter system, identifying supportive housing models that offer both rental and homeownership opportunities, developing plans to access private funding sources, and minimizing the utilization of traditional emergency shelters.

"Civilization enjoys its finest hours when it's defending the weak and the vulnerable," stated Archbishop Mansell at the event. Hartford's planning body includes a broad partnership of public and private sectors. Among them are elected officials form Canton and Manchester, and leaders of United Way, Partnership for Strong Communities, Mercy Housing and Shelter Corporation, Hartford Health and Human Services, Hartford Police Department, Hartford and St. Francis Hospitals, Hartford Foundation, Travelers Life, Fannie Mae, Hartford Public Schools, and Connecticut Departments of Children and Families, Social Services, and Veterans Affairs, as well as local providers and formerly homeless persons.

Washington, DC, Mayor Anthony Williams last week unveiled "Homeless No More," the 10-Year Plan for the Nation's Capital, based on the recommendations of a broad spectrum of city and business leaders, homeless providers and advocates, and homeless people. The plan proposes three long-term policies to end homelessness: 1) increase homeless prevention efforts at both local and federal levels; 2) provide supportive services fully coordinated to include homeless programs and special needs housing; and 3) develop 6,000 units of affordable, supportive permanent housing to meet the needs of the District's homeless and other very-low-income persons who are at risk. Mayor Williams is pictured here.

"As Mayor, one of my most important goals is to improve the quality of life for all residents of this city," said Mayor Williams. "Let's be honest, at the end of 10 years, there will still be homeless people in our city-but their homelessness will be of short duration and we will focus our efforts on rapid re- housing of these individuals. This city should be a place where businesspeople, residents and visitors are proud that we can make room for the poorest of the poor and for our most vulnerable citizens." Joining Mayor Williams at the announcement were Deputy Mayor Neil Albert, Policy Advisor and Policy Academy Leader Lynn French, National Alliance to End Homelessness President Nan Roman, Catholic Charities President Ed Orzechowski, and United States Interagency Council Deputy Director Mary Ellen Hombs.

The DC Plan includes a commitment to rapid re- housing and a Housing First strategy, establishment of a DC Interagency Council on Homelessness, and a commitment to an interagency budget strategy for the future. Under the plan, mainstream public agencies and services would be transformed to better serve homeless persons. Traditional emergency shelters would be replaced by easy- access, rapid- exit "Housing Assistance Centers." "Housing First" options and "Housing Plus" options would be offered to rapidly move homeless city residents to permanent housing.

Norfolk, Virginia, Mayor Paul Fraim, committed to ending chronic homelessness in 10 years, used this week's annual State of the City speech to call on neighboring mayors from Suffolk, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, and Portsmouth to participate in a summit to formulate "a coordinated, regional approach to this tragic condition that affects many of our citizens." Stated the Mayor, "The city can end homelessness in Norfolk. The city cannot end homelessness in the region." Mayor Fraim is pictured here.

Mayor Peter Fraim and the Norfolk City Council last summer approved the creation of the Blue Ribbon Commission to implement a performance-based, results-oriented plan. In addition to the Mayor, the Vice Mayor, City Manager, City Attorney, Schools Superintendent, Housing Authority Director, and Planning Commission Chair, Commission members include U.S. Representative Robert Scott, Tidewater Community College's President, United Way's Executive Director, and four local business executives.

The Virginian-Pilot newspaper editorialized at the time on the creation by the Norfolk City Council of a Norfolk Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness: "The 'We Believe' billboards and window signs around the area suggest a certain civic moxie about the quest to bring Major League Baseball to Norfolk. But what might happen if community leaders applied the same attitude to other important issues? We have a chance to find out."

Addressing reentry needs for men and women returning from prison is recognized as a key to homelessness prevention. In 2003, the United States Departments of Justice, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, and Health and Human Services established the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) as a large-scale program providing over $100 million to 69 grantees to develop programming, training, and state-of-the-art reentry strategies at the community level. The SVORI programs are intended to reduce recidivism, as well as to improve employment, housing, and health outcomes of participating released prisoners.

SVORI funded reentry initiatives in all 50 states, DC, and the Virgin Islands, with awards ranging from $500,000 to $2 million in 3-year grants. SVORI has now resulted in a new reentry resource on-line with the publication of the National Portrait of SVORI, the first in a series of publications documenting the work of the Multi-site Evaluation of SVORI. The Portrait, which includes state by state profile of initiatives, is the final product of a preliminary assessment of all 69 sites funded under SVORI and is based on reviews of grantee proposals and workplans, telephone interviews with program directors, and visits to selected sites.

According to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Cheri Nolan, who has been visiting awardees across the country to identify best practices in the reentry program, reentry grantee sites are working to build a framework to coordinate services and provide faith and community-based mentoring to prevent reoffending, enhance public safety, and redeploy existing community resources by fostering linkages and addressing access issues to ensure long-term sustainability.

In the midst of recent state budget concerns, the Washington State Legislature has created a new fund to provide housing based services for homeless families. The legislature appropriated $2.2 million on the strength of an innovative idea and solid community partnerships, resulting in a new resources for housing based social services with a one time allocation that will last 15 years, based on a partnership that joins philanthropic organizations and public housing authorities that are receiving support requests for assistance for the same projects.

Currently supportive housing projects for homeless people receive capital funding that obligates their use for 50 year or longer, yet the services that define supportive housing are generally funded annually and are vulnerable to the ups and downs of budgetary cycles. The new approach sought to answer the question: Why not create a central fund that would underwrite services and provide stability of support for 15 years, setting up a funding reserve for services similar to an operating reserve for building maintenance?

The Washington State legislature was enthusiastic about the concept. Moreover, philanthropic organizations in the region liked the idea for exactly the same reasons. Consequently three local foundations agreed to match the state's contribution and double the central fund to nearly $5 million. Meanwhile the public housing authorities of the state united to form common practices in providing project based Section 8 rental assistance in housing for homeless families. The contribution of the housing authorities from their Section 8 funding made the proposal attractive to the legislature. Projects will now have adequate operating support as well as service funds for a minimum of 15 years.

The State fund is managed under contract by AIDS Housing of Washington that has just released the first RFP for $3 million. They anticipate that services for at least 150 units of supportive housing for homeless families will be funded in the first year. Thanks to Interagency Council Region X Coordinator Paul Carlson for this story.

Atlanta's new Gateway Center for homeless services and the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Center in Atlanta were the site last week as state innovators convened regionally for the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness' Southeastern Colloquy on Ending Chronic Homelessness, to share strategies and results in changing state government policy and practice through a 10-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness. State leaders and homeless policy officials from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, and Tennessee joined expert faculty from across the country for the 1-day immersion into public/private partnerships, leveraging of state, local, and private resources, and data.

Led by United States Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director Philip Mangano, Colloquy attendees first heard from Representative John Lewis, who welcomed them to Atlanta and shared his firsthand experiences of Ebenezer Church and the civil rights struggle, setting the stage for a day focused on firsthand knowledge in creating change.

The State Colloquy, which mirrors city/county colloquies conducted by the Council nationally last year, provided state policymakers with the opportunity to hear firsthand from states with plans underway, including Utah Homeless Task Force Director Lloyd Pendleton and Minnesota Housing Finance Agency Commissioner Tim Marx. Atlanta 10- Year Plan leaders Horace Sibley, Chair of the newly re-named Regional Commission on Homelessness and United Way of Metro Atlanta Senior Vice President Dr. Christopher Allers shared with colloquy participants their success in leveraging public and private resources to support the goals of the regional Atlanta-Fulton County plan. South Carolina Budget and Control Board Chief of Health and Demographics Pete Bailey described South Carolina's data initiatives that are part of the state's plan. Council Regional Coordinators John O'Brien and Michael German were instrumental to the development of the Colloquy.

While in Atlanta, Council Director Mangano joined Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and Commission Chair Horace Sibley, Union Mission Director Vince Smith, and Metropolitan Atlanta United Way President and Commission Co-chair Mark O'Connell for a tour of the city's planned Gateway Center, a centerpiece of the regional plan. The Gateway Center is planned to reduce overflow shelter demand and assist homeless persons with disabilities to obtain appropriate service referrals, offering 300 beds, as well as services, including showers, toilets, storage, telephones, and specialized services for veterans.

THIS WEEK'S e-news recognizes Black History Month with excerpts from remarks made by United States Interagency Council on Homelessness Excutive Director Philip Mangano at the Ebenezer Baptitst Church in Altanta last week (see related e- news story). "We chose this historic location purposefully for today's gathering. I had visited Ebenezer Church and Dr. King's grave on my last visit and talked about having a meeting here. And Council Regional Coordinator Michael German made it happen."

"A great movement emanated from this place. One that ended a social wrong, the notion that hue and pigmentation of skin had something to do with civil rights."

"And now another social wrong is being confronted here in this city, in this country, and in this room today. An insidious injustice that has been accommodated for too long in public policy decisions that seem anesthetized to the magnitude of this social malady."

"Can we in this room make a difference? Is the new partnership across this country - 20 federal agencies, 50 governors, and 175 mayors and county executives - capable of upsetting the current status quo of homelessness?"