OREGON. More than the leaves are turning golden in Oregon. There are new jurisdictional 10-year planning commitments and from Portland comes news of a 20% reduction in downtown street homelessness in the first 18 months of the Portland/Multnomah County Home Again 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness implementation. As of August, 992 chronically homeless persons and 500 homeless families have been housed. These results demonstrate what can be achieved by determined elected leaders and equally determined and skilled providers collaborating together and supported by the business community and a broad base of community will.

During a PBS interview last week while in Portland to speak at the Community Action Directors of Oregon Conference (see related story), United States Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director Philip Mangano credited Portland Mayor Tom Potter, City Councilman Erik Sten, and Multnomah County officials including Board Chair Diane Linn and Commissioner Serena Cruz-Walsh for creating and implementing a 10-Year Plan that "makes common sense, business sense, and is securing results." Director Mangano spoke about the effectiveness of the Housing First approach saying, "We, who have been housed all our lives, aren't really in touch with the therapeutic impact that having a place to live has in anybody's life. What we've seen consistently across the country is that people's symptoms from mental illness, from addiction and other disabilities, they reduce when they're in housing." Citing the San Diego cost study of 15 homeless people that showed that they had cost the city $3 million over 18 months through their constant visits to emergency rooms, detox, and jail, Director Mangano explained that city leaders realized that "we could have rented oceanside penthouse condominiums with sweeping views of the Pacific and provided servants to attend to every whim, and that would have been a less expensive intervention." Even after spending all that money, they were still homeless.

Multnomah County community action agency director Mary Li, who was also interviewed by PBS, noted that "the focus on chronically homeless individuals has been challenging for many folks who work with families and youth and women living with domestic violence. But people were able to set those concerns aside, because they were willing to try this new model. And now we're hoping to see the trickle effect from the focus on the chronic homeless to these other populations, and hope we gain some traction." Oregon Community Action Directors President Tom Clancey Burns noted "there's a new passion to move forward, to take action, and so anything we can do to come up with solutions, if they're different, that's great, but the goal here is to actually have some outcomes that will sustain for a long time forward."

Portland's 'Home Again' Results

Similar to Denver's Road Home and Asheville/Buncombe County's Looking Homeward, Portland's 10-year planning effort includes a website to keep the community informed of the Plan's implementation progress and opportunities for civic involvement such as the community's Project Homeless Connect events that were held in January and July. The website lists each of the Plan's goal and provides quarterly reports that note whether each goal's implementation is on target, lagging behind, or exceeded. Specific 2nd year goals to be met by December 31, 2006 include housing for 390 chronically homeless individuals and 250 homeless families. First half of the year results show 206 chronically homeless persons and 147 families have already been housed. Through Housing Rapid Response, a collaborative effort of the Portland Police Department, the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, and Central City Concern, 17 chronically homeless persons with repeat arrests or incarceration histories were permanently housed. Between October and June, four "Key Not A Card" programs (the term card referring to business cards) have linked 144 people in 119 households directly from the streets into housing, of which 98.5% remain in stable permanent housing.

More Jurisdictional 10-Year Planning Efforts

In June the Oregon Leadership Summit on Ending Chronic Homelessness, sponsored by the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness and organized by Council Regional Coordinator Paul Carlson, brought together 35 mayors, county commissioners and city councilmembers, and 50 senior state and local government officials for a one day summit in Salem, the state capital. This summit has had a far reaching impact in energizing local efforts in homelessness planning. The City of Eugene/Lane County and Clakamas County, a suburb of Portland, will soon complete their own 10-Year Plans. Lincoln County, on the Oregon coast, has been in the vanguard of rural counties engaged in planning efforts and is expected to complete a plan next year. Also close to completing a plan is Marion County which includes the capital city of Salem.

Medford/Jackson County and McMinnville/Yamhill County Commissioners have officially endorsed the idea of developing 10-Year Plans for their jurisdictions and Washington County, the state's second most populous county, is expected to do likewise. Washington County has already committed to hosting its first Project Homeless Connect on January 24.

Governor Kulongoski's Ending Homelessness Advisory Council Meets

State level leadership can be particularly important in a predominantly rural state like Oregon. In April, Governor Ted Kulongoski (pictured here) signed an Executive Order creating his Ending Homelessness Advisory Council. The Council is cochaired by the Governor's Director of Housing and Community Services Victor Merced and Lincoln County Commissioner Bill Hall. Other Council members include state agency executives, and representatives of local jurisdictions and philanthropy. The Council began meeting in August and one of its first focus areas was prevention of homelessness among those being discharged from state institutions. The state will also develop its own 10-Year Plan which will be coordinated with the many local 10-year plans now in development.

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA. With this issue of the e-news, we continue our series of occasional articles on state investments to end homelessness with a look at Minnesota. Previous e-news articles have focused on state budget initiatives in Hawaii, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. In 2003 the Minnesota State Legislature, at the request of Governor Tim Pawlenty, directed the Commissioners of the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, Department of Human Services, and Department of Corrections to convene a broad representative group of stakeholders to create a plan for ending long term homelessness. The result was the $540 million Minnesota Business Plan to End Long Term Homelessness by 2010. Exemplary for its business approach that incorporated multi-disciplinary, multi-sector and multi-jurisdictional strategies for action, Governor Pawlenty was asked to present and discuss the state plan at a meeting of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness in Washington in April 2004 (shown here).

At the time of the Plan's release, approximately 3300 Minnesotans, including 500 children, were believed to be experiencing long term homelessness. The Minnesota Plan called for the creation of a total of 4000 permanent supportive housing opportunities by 2010 including 500 new construction units, 1500 acquisition and rehab units, 400 new units to be integrated into mixed income developments and rental assistance for 1600 units. Within the $540 million estimated cost of the program was $180 million for housing support/community living services/income supplements. Already the state has committed more than $40 million to the Plan's implementation.

Minnesota has a biennial budget process. For the 2006-2007 biennium, the state appropriated $23.3 million for Homeless Prevention and Supportive Housing activities within the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency that include the development and operation of supportive housing through the Housing Trust Fund Program; the "Bridges" program known formally as the Rent Assistance for Persons with Mental Illness program; and the Family Homeless Prevention and Assistance Program (FHPAP) that provides flexible grants to counties and non profit organizations to use to assist families or youth who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness. Grant recipients are required to design an emergency response system that shifts the focus to prevention of homelessness and a more rapid move to housing. In Fiscal Year 2005, 5885 households received homeless prevention assistance with nearly half of the households served under FHPAP single parent families and an average assistance per household of $568 Since 2004, 672 new units targeted to serve long-term homeless individuals and families have been created.

Preservation of the existing affordable rental housing stock is also an important objective. The MHFA reports that nearly 40% of the state's housing stock was built prior to 1959 and nearly half of Minnesota's Section 8 housing stock was financed with 20 year mortgages that either have or soon will expire. The Affordable Rental Investment Fund, known as ARIF Preservation and funded at nearly $18 million for 2006-2007, focuses on projects that are at risk of losing federal assistance due to the physical condition of the aging building. In 2005, the program was expanded to include the preservation of supportive housing.

This year the Minnesota Legislature also approved its largest bonding effort ever toward homelessness including $17.5 million for permanent supportive housing, $2 million for transitional housing, and $700,000 for the Hastings Veterans Home to plan for new supportive housing for veterans.

A supplemental appropriations bill enacted this year provides $200,000 each year beginning in 2008 to fund additional discharge planners in the Department of Corrections. This is in addition to legislation also enacted this session that beginning in 2008 will redirect approximately $100,000 per year in federal incentive payments to the Department of Correction to help transition inmates with mental illness back into the community.

In March of this year, Governor Pawlenty announced $10 million in 2-year state grants to 37 counties and six tribal organizations to provide supportive housing services for 1500 Minnesotans. The grants, made available through the Minnesota Department of Human Services in conjunction with the MHFA and the Department of Corrections, are intended to complement mainstream services and include funding for independent living skills, chemical and mental health care, domestic abuse counseling, benefit application assistance, and criminal justice diversion and re-entry services.

As reported in the September 28 e-news, the City of Minneapolis and Hennepin County have created a joint 10-Year Plan. That plan envisions the creation of a Daytime Opportunity Center as a one stop resource for housing, employment, benefits assistance and legal aid. The state has approved legislation allowing the city to create a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District in a downtown area that would require half of the site's rising property taxes be used for improvements to shelters run by Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army and which also could be used to support construction of an Opportunity Center. Minneapolis/Hennepin County Commission to End Homelessness members are considering the possibility of suggesting two centers-one for single adults and another for youth and families.

Tallahassee, Florida. Tallahassee offers community residents an opportunity to get involved in ending family homelessness through a monthly contribution on their utility bills. The "¢hange for Change" program was developed by leaders of the Tallahassee Equality Action Ministry (TEAM) and approved by the Tallahassee City Commission in 2004. TEAM is a collaboration of congregations in the community committed to community involvement.

By filling out an online form or calling the City of Tallahassee Utility Services, utility customers can designate how much they would like to contribute each month and that amount is automatically added to their utility bill. Customers can increase or decrease their contribution or stop participating at any time. How the money is distributed to agencies providing homeless prevention and intervention services is determined by the Community Human Services Partnership. The Community Human Service Partnership (CHSP) is an innovative collaboration between Leon County, the City of Tallahassee, and the United Way of the Big Bend established in 1997 to more effectively distribute community funds for human services. Rather than having the city, county, and United Way all conduct similar but separate processes for allocating their human service funds, a joint decision making process was created establishing a once a year, one application process for non-profits. 12 trained volunteer teams review applications, conduct site visits, and recommend priorities and funding. Final recommendations are submitted to the city, county and United Way Board for approval. This effort has resulted in easier identification of service delivery gaps, more effective outcome measurement and more inclusive communitywide planning. The CHSP innovation has been recognized nationally and was selected as a case study by the International City County Management Universities Best Practices 2000.

The "¢hange for Change" program has generated over $69,000 in community donations for homeless prevention and intervention efforts, according to City of Tallahassee Human Services Manager Pat Holliday who also reports that "100% of the funds go directly to programs." Last year, in the first distribution of funds raised by the "¢hange for Change" initiative, $28,472 was given to emergency and basic needs homeless programs. For FY 2006-2007 which began on October 1, $41,088 was distributed among three organizations: ECHO, a faith-based program that provides emergency services including utility assistance, a weekend meals program, and operates the Bethany Family Apartments for families with children; the Capital Area Community Action Agency that helps homeless families immediately off the street into hotels while permanent housing is sought and enrolls families in a Self Sufficiency program; and Big Bend Homeless Coalition which operates a transitional housing program for homeless families.

On October 7, the Big Bend Homeless Coalition hosted its 7th annual Service Day. 275 homeless persons, nearly 50% of whom were veterans, were able to receive a variety of medical and dental screenings, legal and social services, showers, haircuts, hot meals, and hygiene supplies. Please see related Project Homeless Connect story in this issue for more information on the Tallahassee event.

HAWAII. Proclaiming October 1-7 as Mental Health Awareness Week, Governor Linda Lingle (pictured here,top) announced that she would convene a Governor's Mental Health Transformation Working Group to develop and implement a Statewide Comprehensive Mental Health Plan after receiving news that Hawaii had been awarded a $14.2 million Mental Health Transformation State Incentive Grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The Hawaii Department of Health currently spends about $182 million for mental health services for adults and children with portions of other department budgets also spent on services. There are an estimated 11,000 seriously mentally ill adults in Hawaii. Calling the grant " a great milestone", Governor Lingle added, " This grant is going to transform how we help people with mental illnesses and how we help their families and how we help society deal with these issues." Mental illness has been identified as a major contributor to homelessness, particularly among those experiencing chronic homelessness.

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA. A fee for the electronic filing of property sales disclosure forms will provide the first dedicated funding source for the Indianapolis/Marion County Housing Trust Fund. An ordinance approved by the Indianapolis City/County Council this summer creates the fee, which is expected to generate approximately $300,000 in revenue a year. The Indianapolis/Marion County Trust Fund was created by the Indiana General Assembly in 2000 to provide rental and homeownership assistance to low income individuals and families, to support the development, rehabilitation, and financing of housing, and to provide technical assistance to non profit developers who will create affordable housing.

In 2004 Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson (pictured here, middle) provided $500,000 for the Trust Fund from revenues from the sale of property for commercial development and the Fund currently has $1.4 million from a smorgasboard of public and private sources. As is the case in Indianapolis/Marion County, trust fund resources are often used to leverage other money from government sources, the private sector, and philanthropic organizations. $300,000 in grants awarded by the Indianapolis/Marion County Housing Trust Fund in 2005 was matched 2.5:1 by the Central Indiana Community Foundation and a private benefactor. CHIP, the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention, helped lead a public awareness campaign, A Home Within Reach, to garner community support for the city to determine a dedicated revenue stream for the Trust Fund. CHIP also serves as the lead entity for Indianapolis' 10- Year Plan, Blueprint to End Homelessness, endorsed by Mayor Peterson in 2002. The strategies in the Blueprint are aimed at increasing the supply of affordable housing and also strengthening and better coordinating homeless prevention and supportive services. Mayor Peterson has called the ordinance creating the Fund's first permanent revenue stream "a good start" and has vowed to continue looking for new ways to generate more revenue for the Fund.

HOUSTON, TEXAS. While the relative quiet of the 2006 hurricane season is being met with relief and gratitude by the millions of people living in the Gulf and hurricane prone coastal states, thousands of displaced individuals and families still trying to recover from Hurricane Katrina received welcome news last week. The Federal Emergency and Management Agency has extended through February federal housing assistance to an estimated 15,000 hurricane evacuee families living in Houston. City and FEMA officials are working with the families to recertify their eligibility and help them find jobs and other services. For summary information on Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts-1 Year Later, please visit the FEMA website. United States Interagency Council on Homelessness Regional Coordinators Sally Shipman and Michael German continue to meet with federal, state and local partners to monitor homelessness prevention measures for hurricane evacuees. Pictured here, bottom, is Houston Mayor Bill White.

More than three dozen cities have committed to National Project Homeless Connect Week during December 4-8 this year and are moving ahead with planning, using some of the variety of technical assistance and peer-to-peer tools developed by the Interagency Council and other partners. Included here are photos from recent Connect events including the October 7 Denver Project Homeless Connect sponsored by Comcast which contributed 700 volunteers and a $50,000 donation to Denver's Road Home (top, l-r), Comcast VP for Colorado Scott Binder, Mile High United Way's Mike Dirken, Council Regional Coordinator Ed Cabrera, and Denver Department of Human Services Manager Roxanne White); middle, volunteers at the October 5 San Francisco PHC; and bottom from Tallahassee's October 7 Service Day. You can read more about the Denver and San Francisco PHC events in last week's e-news archived on the Council's website.

Cities are also making plans for 2007 Project Homeless Connect events. Seattle, Washington will hold its first Project Homeless Connect in spring 2007, with the United Way of King County as the lead organizer. Washington County, Oregon will hold its first Connect Event on January 24.

Meanwhile, in Tallahassee, Florida, the Big Bend Homeless Coalition hosted the community's 7th annual Service Day for homeless individuals and families in Tallahassee/Leon County and seven surrounding rural counties on October 7. For the second year, the regional workforce development program, Workforce Plus, obtained a $5000 grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to support the event. BBHC Community Services Coordinator Stephanie Shepherd reports that 275 homeless persons, nearly 50% of whom were veterans, were able to receive a variety of medical and dental screenings, legal and social services, showers, haircuts, hot meals, and hygiene supplies. The event was made possible by the efforts of 30 service provider agencies and 136 volunteers who contributed over 500 hours of service. Each participant met with a trained volunteer and provided critical information about themselves, their current situation and needs. The Tallahassee Veterans Outpatient Clinic provided medical care to 47 adults and the Leon County Health Department performed 47 rapid-response HIV tests.

PORTLAND, OREGON. Bridges Out of Poverty was the theme for this year's Community Action Directors of Oregon Conference held last week in Portland which also drew community action agency officials from Washington State, Idaho, North and South Dakota and Wyoming. Invited to address the Plenary Session on Wednesday, United States Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director Philip Mangano commended the longstanding commitment of community action agencies to reducing and ending poverty and noted the opportunity for CAA's to be "laboratories of new initiatives". Pictured here, l-r, Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency Executive Director Teresa Cox, Director Mangano, Multnomah County Department of Schools and Community Partnership Director Mary Li, Community Action Directors of Oregon President Tom Clancey Burns, Community Action Directors of Oregon Executive Director Wendy VanElverdinge, and Clackamas County Human Services Division Director John Mullin.

Referring to John McKnight's book, The Careless Society, Direction Mangano noted that the author reminds us that as we professionalize services we find more and more deficits, deficiencies, and needs requiring a longer and longer period of servicing. McKnight makes it clear that if we trap people in dependency, we are doing them no good, and Mangano continued, "as much as well intended care and sacrifice and good intentions are important in crisis moments, people prefer to have their situations remedied. They prefer ending their isolation and dependence to being serviced and managed in them." Director Mangano thanked the community action directors for their assistance with the Council's Oregon Leadership Summit to End Chronic Homelessness held in June that has helped spark new 10-year planning efforts to end homelessness across the state (see related story) and he praised the leadership of Portland Mayor Potter, City Commissioner Erik Sten, and Multnomah officials including Board Chair Diane Linn and Commissioner Serena Cruz-Walsh for the 10-Year Plan in Portland/Multnomah County that is already achieving results including a 20% reduction in street homelessness in downtown Portland.

At the conference, Council Regional Coordinator Paul Carlson joined state Continuum of Care Coordinator Jodie Jones and Portland Ending Homelessness Program Manager Heather Lyons in presenting a workshop on Designing and Implementing Plans to End Homelessness as part of the Bridges to Stable Housing discussion track. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Homeless Coordinator for the Northwest and Alaska Chris Oliver presented information on VA resources for homeless veterans as part of the housing discussion track. Oregon Housing and Community Services Director Victor Merced, who also co-chairs the Governor's Ending Homelessness Policy Council, keynoted the Awards Banquet.

In this edition of the enews, we note with sadness the recent passing of the distinguished sociologist Peter H. Rossi (shown here, top) whose long career is notable not only for his contributions to our understanding of the nature of homelessness in America, but also to his advocacy for applied research within the sociology community, and to the use of evaluation and outcome measurements in the development of social programs. This belief in the importance of data, research, and evaluation as drivers of effective social policy programs underlies the President's Management Agenda and is fundamental to the work of the Council. Dr. Rossi's textbook, Evaluation: A Systematic Approach, coauthored with Mark W. Lipsey and Howard E. Freeman, is an often cited classic in the field.

In writing of his passing, the New York Times obituary headline referred to Dr. Rossi as "the sociologist who studied homelessness." The Times notes that for his famous book, Down and Out in America: the Origins of Homelessness (University of Chicago, 1989), "Professor Rossi and a team of researchers took to the streets of Chicago in 1985 and 1986 in one of the first systematic efforts to count the homeless." Many years later, Dr. Rossi would write an article in Fannie Mae's Housing Policy Debate commenting on Dennis Culhane et al's study on Public Shelter Admission Rates in Philadelphia and New York City, "Dennis Culhane and his coauthors have made an important contribution to our understanding of contemporary homelessness. Until now attention has been all too exclusively focused on point-prevalence estimates. Their credible calculations of period prevalence estimates of the sheltered homeless in Philadelphia and New York City tell us that the cumulative impact of homelessness over time is quite high. Their findings may allow homelessness policies to become more carefully and closely tailored to differences among the homeless in their needs for resources and services." The Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology given to Dr. Rossi in 1999 by the American Sociological Association read in part, " Dr. Rossi has done more than plant the seeds of his sociological knowledge in policy making bodies; he has taken what he has learned from these rich experiences back to sociology by treating the practical problems facing the society as part of mainstream sociology."

Last week also brought news that Bangladesh economist Muhammad Yunus (shown here, bottom) and his Grameen Bank had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the pioneering use of "micro credit" through which small loans of as little as $9 have helped impoverished people, particularly women in small villages, start small businesses. Over the past 30 years, the bank has lent $5.72 billion with a reported 98% repayment rate. In making the award, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee praised Mr. Yunus as "a leader who has managed to translate vision into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh but across the cultures and civilizations."

Like the abolitionists who believed that slavery was wrong and ended it and those who fought for and secured voting rights for women, Mr. Yunus' belief that poverty can be eliminated in the world has served as an inspiration to the Council's mission of ending, not simply managing, homelessness in this country. In his meetings with political, business and civic leaders in cities across the country, United States Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director Philip Mangano often refers to Mr. Yunus' statement that, " My goal is for my grandchildren to have to go to a museum to see what poverty was," adding "No doubt, in their travels, his grandchildren will also visit the sites of the Underground Railroad to understand what slavery once was, the Berlin Wall to see what Soviet Communism once was, and South Africa's Robbin Island Prison Museum, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, to see what apartheid was. Let's hope that in their travels, they visit a City Shelter Museum to see what homelessness once was."

WITH THIS ISSUE, the e-news presents information on the Title V federal surplus property program and the opportunity to secure resources - including for permanent supportive housing - under the McKinney- Vento Homeless Assistance Act for persons experiencing homelessness.

The October 13, 2006, listing of suitable and available properties includes land in Arizona, California, Kentucky, Utah, and Vermont and buildings in California, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, and Washington State.

Effective September 1, 2006, Title V surplus properties may be used for permanent supportive housing for families and individuals.

In a change to federal policy which became effective September 1, 2006, local governments and eligible community organizations may submit applications to acquire Title V surplus properties for permanent supportive housing for homeless individuals and families. The new regulation defines permanent supportive housing as housing that is " long term, affordable, community based, and linked to appropriate supportive health and social services that enable homeless individuals and families with disabilities to maintain housing." Any existing grantees or lessees interested in changing current program activity to include permanent supportive housing are requested to provide a written expression of interest to HHS at the Division of Property Management, Administrative Operations Service, Program Support Center Room 5B- 17, Parklawn Building, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 28457.

Property including land and buildings newly identified as "suitable and available" to assist the homeless are listed each Friday in the Federal Register and are available exclusively to applicants for homeless use for a period of 60 days from the date of the Notice. Applicants for these federal surplus properties must identify how they intend to utilize the property to meet the needs of homeless persons in their communities. Click here to view the October 13 Federal Register notice or visit the Council's website at www.usich.gov and click on the funding tab to view the latest listing each week.