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Partners In a Vision
WASHINGTON, D.C. MAYOR ANTHONY WILLIAMS ENDORSES 10-YEAR PLAN
Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams (pictured here) today unveiled
the Capital's 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness. Joined by U.S. Interagency
Council Executive Director Philip Mangano, National Alliance to End
Homelessness Executive Director Kirk Gibson, and local service providers
and advocates, Mayor Williams unveiled Homeless No More, a plan focused on
moving homeless residents into permanent housing as quickly as possible
and providing social services to help resolve the issues that caused them
to be homeless. "Today is a good day in the nation's Capital. Washington,
D.C. shows itself to be a compassionate and pragmatic city as it joins
many other cities across our great country committed to ending the
national disgrace of chronic homelessness in the next decade. Washington,
D.C. partners with cities all across our country in moving forward with a
ten year plan to end the chronic homelessness of people on our streets and
in shelters," stated Executive Director Mangano.
Drafted by the Mayor's Policy Academy Team ("MPACT") and 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 by 2014: 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. The MPACT team will form the
nucleus of a new District Interagency Council on Homelessness that will
create cross-system strategies to facilitate the ending of homelessness.
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" and "Housing First" options would be offered to rapidly move
homeless city residents to permanent housing where they would be supported
by transitional, neighborhood-based services until they are beyond their
crises. "Housing Plus" options would provide immediate placement along
with ongoing supportive services.
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CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, BECOMES FIRST CALIFORNIA
COUNTY TO UNVEIL HOUSING FIRST ORIENTED 10-YEAR PLAN TO END CHRONIC
HOMELESSNESS |
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 With the approval of the County
Board of Supervisors on June 8, Contra Costa County, California,
became the first California county to produce a 10-Year Plan to End
Chronic Homelessness. Developed by a broad range of community
partners, including elected officials, businesses, the faith
community, service providers, and homeless people, "Ending
Homelessness in Ten Years: A County-Wide Plan for the Communities of
Contra Costa County" takes a strong Housing First approach and also
focuses on priority strategies including: wraparound services to
support new tenancies, employment access, engagement in mainstream
services, and homelessness prevention. Richmond, California, Mayor
Irma Anderson, who chairs the Health and Human Services Committee of
the U.S. Conference of Mayors, stated, "This is the right way to go,
to find permanent solutions."
As stated in the new Plan, "After almost 20 years of work
responding to homelessness in this community, the non-profit housing
and service agencies, the County Departments delivering health care,
social services, and housing, and the cities know without a doubt
that it is necessary to rend this extreme and devastating form of
poverty," pointing to the need for a new way of doing things and a
new degree of collaboration involving all sectors of the community
to position partners to secure new resources and align all community
efforts in pursuit of the goal of ending chronic homelessness.
Contra Costa was encouraged in efforts to end chronic homelessness
in 2003, when it was named one of 11 communities in the nation to
receive a federal HUD-HHS-VA Collaborative Initiative award to move
persons experiencing chronic homelessness off the streets and out of
shelters into permanent supportive housing.
Cynthia Belon, Director of the Contra Costa County Homeless
Program, said of the new plan, "The strategies described in the
10-Year Plan will cost counties and cities a lot less in the long
run and will be the most humane approaches we know to address
chronic homelessness. Everyone wins." During a recent visit to
California, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive
Director Philip Mangano spoke at the California League of Cities and
met with a delegation from Contra Costa, including Martinez Mayor
Rob Schroder (pictured above) and Ms. Belon. "Their regional and
inclusive partnerships are a model for other California counties,"
he indicated. "Their commitment to innovation and cost efficiency
partners them with 10-Year initiatives across the country and with
the work we are doing in Washington." Contra Costa County has a
population of over 992,000 people and includes the communities of
Concord, Martinez, Orinda, Pittsburgh, Richmond, San Pablo, San
Ramon, and Walnut Creek.
Read
the Plan »
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HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES HOUSING AND COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY
SUB-COMMITTEE ANNOUNCES TENTATIVE JULY 13TH HEARING DATE FOR
SAMARITAN INITIATIVE ACT, H.R. 4057 |
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 Congress reconvenes this week
after suspending activity for a week of mourning and memorial
activities for former President Ronald Reagan. While several
appropriation bills are scheduled for mark-up and floor action in
the House of Representatives, neither the VA/HUD nor the Labor/HHS
Appropriations bills are expected to be considered before July. This
is good news as efforts to move the Samaritan Initiative
authorization bill (H.R. 4057) through the legislative process
continue. The Financial Services Housing and Community Opportunity
Subcommittee, chaired by Congressman Bob Ney (R-OH) (pictured here),
has set July 13th as the tentative hearing date for consideration of
the bill. In a report earlier this year to the House Budget
Committee, the Financial Services Committee applauded the
Administration's goal of ending chronic homelessness and pledged to
hold a hearing to consider the Administration's Samaritan Initiative
proposal.
As reported last week, letters were recently sent to Congress by
the National League of Cities and by nearly 80 mayors from the U.S.
Conference of Mayors representing jurisdictions large and small
supporting the Samaritan Initiative. They join the leaders of
national organizations including the National Alliance for the
Mentally Ill, National Alliance to End Homelessness, Association for
Service Disabled Veterans, National Coalition for Homeless Veterans,
Corporation for Supportive Housing, and The Enterprise Foundation,
in urging Congress to act this session to enact and fund the
Samaritan Initiative. Several of the nearly 80 mayors signing the
most recent letter are from cities represented by members of the
Financial Services Committee who have not yet cosponsored the
legislation including Cedar Rapids (Jim Leach), Sarasota FL
(Kathleen Harris), Rockford IL (Donald Manzullo), Burlington VT
(Bernie Sanders), St. Louis MO (William Clay), and Baton Rouge LA
(Richard Baker).
Read
more about the Samaritan Initiative »
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MICHIGAN CONVENES NEW STATEWIDE STRATEGIC PLANNING TEAM TO
END HOMELESSNESS |
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 Michigan's new Strategic Planning Team for
Ending Homelessness, focused on issues of homeless families,
children, and youth, convened for the first time in Lansing on June
9, with state and local policymakers, service providers, consumers,
and other stakeholders gathered for a special kick-off event for the
state's new initiatives to end homelessness. Launched in follow-up
to the Michigan Policy Academy Team on Homeless Families and
Children, which participated in the HHS-HUD-DOL-VA Policy Academy in
Miami in January 2004, the Strategic Planning team is organized into
five workgroups focused on key goals: housing access, homelessness
prevention, access to mainstream, collaborative planning and data,
and building political will. Pictured above are team member Jocelyn
Vanda from Family Independence Agency, Pam Paul-Shaheen, Chair of
the Strategic Planning Team, from the Office Michigan Governor
Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness
Executive Director Philip Mangano, and Chuck Kieffer, Vice-Chair of
the Strategic Planning Team, from the Michigan State Housing
Development Authority.
U.S. Interagency Council Executive Director Philip Mangano, who
keynoted the Michigan event, described the range of federal
initiatives that are current, continuing, and new in focusing on
issues related to families, and told the Strategic Planning Team,
"Across the country homelessness is yielding to innovative
initiatives, strategic solutions, and planful partnerships. We're no
longer resigned to the status quo. Nor to détente with homelessness'
seeming intractability. No one is happier in that lack of
resignation than homeless people themselves, our customers.
Increasingly, across the country, governments are learning to be
intolerant of homelessness, but tolerant of homeless people. We can
no longer accept an investment with no return."
While there, Executive Director Mangano had a productive meeting
with Lansing Mayor Antonio Benavides (pictured below) concerning the
prospect of launching a Ten-Year Plan in he state capitol. "Mayor
Benavides' long and effective history in social service delivery
through a faith-based organization, Cristo Rey Community Center,
provides him the insights to move the city forward in ending chronic
homelessness. We'll be glad for his partnership in the planning
process." 
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WORDS OF THE WEEK: BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS; ENGAGING
MAYORS |
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 WITH THIS ISSUE, the e-newsletter begins a new
feature highlighting excerpts of speeches made by U.S. Interagency
Council Executive Director Philip Mangano in visits to cities,
counties, and states to forward federal initiatives to end chronic
homelessness. This week, we focus on remarks delivered at Community
Solutions 2004, a statewide conference in Utah convened by Utah
Issues, a non-profit organization with a focus on homelessness. Mr.
Mangano was introduced by Bill Crim, the Executive Director of Utah
Issues, Center for Poverty Research and Action. "The Utah Policy
Academy team focus on chronic homelessness has demonstrated that a
few people with a deep commitment can forge a strategy that moves
beyond the status quo inertia to a planful and innovative strategy
to accomplish the mission. And what is that mission? To abolish
homelessness. To end this national disgrace... That's the intent of
the plan being developed for Utah and the plans being created in
cities and regions across the country. You should be conscious of
the extraordinary opportunity you have to be a state that moves the
mission forward."
"We are literally creating a partnership that extends from the
White House to the streets, moving through federal agencies, state
houses, city halls and county executive office buildings. If there's
one thing we've learned in the last 20 years, it is that no one
government agency, no one level of government can get the job done
alone. Not Salt Lake City or Ogden or Provo. Not Utah. And in a new
sense of humility in Washington, we admit we can't do it alone
either. All levels of government need to be partnered...But even
that isn't enough. The public sector can't do it alone. The private,
business, non-profit and faith-based sectors must be involved in
planning. And, most importantly, the customers, homelessness people,
must be there as well."
"Our work is to disturb the status quo on behalf of homeless
people. Part of the disturbance is to understand that we can't get
the job done for them on our own. We need to be partnered - public
and private sectors. We're beginning to change the verb of
homelessness all over the country. 20 Federal agencies are making
their resources more accessible. 120 Mayors have agreed to create 10
year plans to end homelessness for those most at risk. They've dared
to put those two words in the same sentence - "ending" and
"homelessness". 46 Governors have established State Interagency
Councils, a further expression of tangible political will. They're
joining with us in changing the verb of homelessness - we are no
longer content managing the problem, we are committed to ending the
disgrace." 
Executive Director Mangano's visit to Utah also included meetings
with Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson (pictured above) whose city
and region are moving forward with a 10-Year Plan. He also met and
found support for the President's agenda with Provo Mayor Lewis
Billings. Both signaled their support for a regional approach. We'll
keep you informed of their progress. In a meeting with Executive
Director Mangano, Mayor Jerry Washburn (pictured here) of Orem, a
community of 84,325, pledged his support for the 10-Year Planning
process. |
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DID YOU KNOW. . . |
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| ...that the San Francisco Chronicle, having run
a Pulitzer-nominated multi-part series on life on the streets of San
Francisco in late 2003, this week ran two articles on innovative
responses to the homelessness depicted in the Chronicle series. This
week's articles provide evidence of the needed planning and
innovation highlighted in the original series. The Chronicle sent
reporter Kevin Fagan to Philadelphia and New York City, where he
recorded the City of Philadelphia's successful effort to reduce the
numbers of people living on city streets. In New York City, reporter
Fagan examined the innovative and successful Pathways to Housing,
one of the most visible models of the Housing First approach in the
nation. For a complete look at Kevin Fagan's Homeless stories
including the original San Francisco series and these two recent
articles, please see http://www.sfgate.com/homeless/
...According to the Department of Education, homeless children
and youth are one of the fastest- growing segments of the homeless
population, with states reporting that the number of homeless
children and youth has increased approximately 10% nationally
between calendar years 1997 and 2000. Two-thirds of these children
and youth are in the age range served by pre-kindergarten through
grade 6. Approximately 87% of school-age homeless children and youth
are enrolled in school, and about 77% attend school regularly. Only
15% of homeless preschool-aged children are enrolled in preschool
programs.
...That the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) has
"loaned" one of the executives from its extensive social service
activities to Utah's State planning process to create the 10-Year
Plan for the Beehive State. Lloyd Pendleton is working closely with
state officials and Utah Issues, a state-wide advocacy group to
ensure that his state gets the job done. Lloyd is convinced they
will!
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FEDERAL PARTNER PROFILE: CORPORATION FOR NATIONAL AND
COMMUNITY SERVICE |
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 WITH THIS ISSUE, we continue our
focus on the federal partners in the Interagency Council with a
profile of the Corporation for National and Community Service
(CNCS), which provides opportunities for Americans of all ages and
backgrounds to serve their communities and country through three
programs: AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and Learn and Serve America.
Members, volunteers, and participants serve with national and
community nonprofit organizations, faith-based groups, schools, and
local agencies to help meet community needs in education, the
environment, public safety, homeland security, and other critical
areas. The Corporation headed by Chief Executive Officer, David
Eisner, (pictured below), is part of USA Freedom Corps, a White
House initiative to foster a culture of citizenship, service, and
responsibility, and help all Americans answer the President's Call
to Service, headed by Director, Desiree Sayle (pictured here.) For
more information on USA Freedom Corps, see
http://www.freedomcorps.gov/.
Several CNCS programs and organizations supported through
AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and Learn and Serve America work closely
with nonprofit agencies whose mission is to address homelessness. In
particular, AmeriCorps*VISTA is an anti-poverty program with
substantial investments in preventing homelessness. Its partnership
is described below. To expand the Corporation's focus on preventing
homelessness, CNCS has endeavored to recruit homeless providers and
agencies in the recent Next Generation Grants, a $4 million
appropriation to foster the next generation of national service
organizations by providing seed money to help new and start-up
organizations, as well as established organizations proposing new
projects or programs. Investments are to support planning and
implementation of new service programs that have the potential of
becoming national in scope. In the Notice of Funding Availability
and outreach efforts for this grant competition, CNCS directly
encouraged homeless focused organizations to apply.
The 2004 AmeriCorps guidelines reference programs that address
homelessness as examples of appropriate AmeriCorps programs, with
the hope that these references will encourage a larger volume of
applicants from homelessness prevention programs. AmeriCorps*State
and National programs have assisted organizations across the country
in combating homelessness. CNCS grantee efforts have resulted in
more than 20 new and rehabilitated homeless shelters for over 800
individuals, helped place more than 24,000 homeless people in
permanent or transitional-to- permanent housing, and helped almost
1,500 homeless people find housing or vouchers for housing. For
example, Common Ground Community, a nonprofit housing development
organization founded in 1990 with the mission is to end homelessness
in New York City, manages over 1,200 units of supportive housing,
with more under construction. The supportive housing programs serve
low-income single adults and formerly homeless individuals,
including elderly persons and persons living with mental illness,
AIDS, and/or other physical disabilities. AmeriCorps*VISTA members
serve Common Ground in three programs: First Step Housing-a low cost
alternative to the city shelter system; West Midtown Homeless
Service Providers- coalition of over 30 area organizations which
seek to end chronic homelessness; and Pathways-an initiative
designed to prepare residents already in supportive housing programs
to have more independent living in permanent housing. 
As part of the Senior Corps, local grantees of RSVP and Foster
Grandparent programs provide services related to homelessness. About
240 RSVP grantees provide services in the area of homelessness.
Senior Corps has about 5,000 community organizations that serve as
placement sites for volunteers engaged in helping with homelessness,
and 10,731 RSVP volunteers help deliver services to the homeless,
serving more than 1 million total annual hours. For example, more
than 3,700 RSVP volunteers helped with housing construction,
including Habitat for Humanity projects, and helped to build,
repair, inspect, or rehabilitate 28,000 houses to benefit 56,000
individuals. More than 700 RSVP volunteers helped with housing
referrals and housing hotlines to assist more than 113,450
individuals in need of housing assistance. About 350 Foster
Grandparents provided services to homeless children. These
volunteers, representing 100 local Foster Grandparent grantees,
served more than 260,000 hours to assist homeless children and
youth.
Read
more about CNCS »
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FEDERAL SURPLUS PROPERTY: KEY CONTACTS FOR THE MCKINNEY-VENTO
TITLE V PROGRAM TO BENEFIT HOMELESS PROGRAMS |
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| WITH THIS ISSUE, the e-newsletter continues its
focus on federal surplus property and opportunities to secure
resources for homeless programs. Under Title V of the McKinney-Vento
Homeless Assistance Act, 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." Properties may be used for a wide variety
of programs and services for homeless people, including, but not
limited to, emergency shelters, transitional programs (with
occupancy limited to 24 months), food banks, job training, storage
facilities, or administrative space. All programs and activities
must be operated in a manner that is consistent with Federal civil
rights and non- discrimination laws.
Key contacts for the Title V program are listed here for
reference. HUD FIELD OFFICES: Contact the HUD field office for your
state to obtain property information and/or to be put on a mailing
list. FEDERAL LANDHOLDING AGENCIES: Further information on specific
properties can be obtained from the specific federal landholding
agency. The name and number to contact can be obtained from the HUD
field office or the HUD toll-free number: 1-800-927-7588. HUD
HEADQUARTERS OFFICE: Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs,
Office of Community Planning and Development, Department of Housing
and Urban Development, Room 7262, 451 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC
20410. Telephone Number: (202) 708- 1234.
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: For a copy of the
application packet for a specific property, write to the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Property
Management, Program Support Center, Room 5B-17, Parklawn Building,
5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857. Telephone Number: (301)
443-2265. Your letter should identify the property in which you are
interested, including the date of the Federal Register notice in
which it was published, include the name of your organization,
whether it is a private or public entity and request an application
packet.
Click
here for the HUD webpage on Title V »
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