R-55 homeless services system of care

1:49:09Okay, R fifty five.

1:49:23I could still say good morning. Marcy S.berg, Director of Community Development. I'm joined today with Don Anderson, the CEO. of the Coalition for the Homeless of Pasco County. We're here to give you an overview and an update of our county's homeless uh services system of care. So we'll start with talking a little bit about how things are set up. Uh, and this is you've probably seen this before, but Pasco County

1:49:53is one of 400 or so continuum of cares across the country, and we compete financially uh for funding around the country. Uh we're comprised of 21 uh members, uh all sectors of our lead. Leadership Council and we have some of them with us today, if you could stand. I've been part of our um leadership council who have been elected to serve. Uh I uh have been the chair. Thank you very much for your service.

1:50:24I've been the chair for going into my third year. And as part of the COC, we have three areas that we work very closely on, and they involve our outreach to our homeless neighbors, our coordinated entry to get people into our system of care, and different special projects that we have. In addition to how the COC is set up with, we have a lead agency and this is all designated by HUD and the Coalition for the Homeless is our lead agency and

1:50:54Tom and Don, if you could talk about how that's organized.

1:50:57Good morning, Commissioner, County Staff. Uh The Coalition for the Homeless of Pasco County is a 501. We operate with a board of directors of seven individuals. And as Marcy said, we are selected by the COC to be the collaborative partner, the lead agency with relation to HUD. And those responsibilities that come with that include management of the HMIS system, the homeless management

1:51:28Um And and act as the administrative body for the C O C as well. We're also responsible for making application to HUD. for their notice of funding uh opportunity. And we do that each year on behalf of the COC under their direction and authority and guidance.

1:51:49So the COC's uh mission is to make homelessness rare, brief, and non recurring in the county. Uh we do that with a systematic approach, very data driven to ending homelessness. And today we're going to explain the system to you and tell you about the successes that we've had the past two years, Don.

1:52:09Uh HUD uh demands many things of us as a continuum of care and the lead agency and in particular it's to establish a housing response crisis system which effectively is starts with outreach where we identify the individuals and the families that are homeless. We evaluate them with a standard tool, and then they go to what is referred to as a by name list, BY hyphen name. And uh the uh individuals and the

1:52:39families on that by name list have all been evaluated by the same tool, so they are ranked in order of who's at the greatest risk of harm on the streets in the woods. And so It starts with the uh outreach teams, which we have two that we uh fund here in the area, Metropolitan Ministries, the Brigade and the Sword and the Spoon. As part of that um outreach and and determination of who's in need of services,

1:53:10we then move to what we referred to as uh Prevention and diversion. Prevention can be those who are at risk of homelessness. Diversion is something that we use to um address individuals and families that are here in the area that are homeless but yet They arrived here from another location, probably to find circumstances different than what they had anticipated and expected. And oftentimes we're able to divert them uh if we can validate that there is a location uh

1:53:41somewhere where they have a bed and services available to them, we will then get that individual or family to uh uh to those resources. Uh The other steps here

1:53:55Emergency shelter. We have limited shelter beds here in the county. We have several agencies that do provide services, but by and large, we use motels as our emergency shelter, and we employ those when we encounter individuals and families that may have medical needs, maybe elderly, there may be extenuating circumstances that put them at great risk, and so we will put them into a motel while we work with them to transition them into housing. And then there are really uh two

1:54:26types of housing that that uh are funded and we have programs for. One is called rapid rehousing. Generally speaking, that's for individuals that Um Have hit a blip on the map. they were probably employed had housing, maybe due to COVID, any number of reasons, they find themselves unemployed. They generally spend an inordinate amount of money on their uh housing, sometimes 70, 80, 90% of their income, which puts them at risk for

1:54:56uh homelessness. And so those are individuals and families that we can get back on their feet quickly by assisting them with first, last and security deposit. Uh and then finally we have permanent supportive housing which is um as its states, it's really an opportunity to take individuals and families that really don't have a path to regain the income and the status and position to be permanently housed. So it affords us an opportunity, although

1:55:26the funds are limited, to provide housing uh supplemental to them for up to uh 12 to 24 months. But again, those monies oftentimes are very limited in what we have available. But all of these things work together to provide a very systematic approach so that everyone is treated the same, evaluated with the same standard, determine who's at the greatest risk, put them at the top of the list to be housed, and that's how we operate. And we try to close off any doors. that

1:55:56would preclude someone from going through the entire system.

1:56:01So uh as I said, this is a very data-driven approach, and so I want to go over some of the numbers that we know about homelessness in Pasco County. These are our point-in-time count numbers for 20 and 21. And um And what's important about these numbers are these aren't merely anecdotal. We drove down the street, what did we see? We drove into a neighborhood, what did we see? These are these are actual counted numbers. And you'll see

1:56:31that from twenty and twenty and both in twenty and twenty one, we have a high percentage of singles, adult uh adult That are not in families. Uh and in 2021, well in 2020, we had 76%. uh were singles and in uh twenty twenty one eighty two percent were singles. So uh that percentage, those circled numbers are important as we go forward because we use the information

1:57:01and the data to uh to uh shape policy and also shape how we fund or what we fund activities. So the next two slides I want to credit finding this information to County Administrator Biles, who said, Marcy, can you find this information for other counties? And so went to the Florida Housing Coalition, who we work with extensively, and they provided this information,

1:57:32and this is based on 2020 data. So you're going to see Three charts and the three charts um I've compared how Pasco County set stands as compared to similar um counties around us, their COCs. So it's not by county, it's by COCs. So we have uh in the first one the comparison of the percentage of our unsheltered where um Pasco County is the highest

1:58:03among uh the three surrounding counties, St. Petersburg, CoC, uh Pinellas County, uh Tampa Hillsborough, CoC, and then uh to the north of us, Citrus Lake, Hernando, and Sumter County. So we uh have the highest number of unsheltered. Uh then the next one uh we all Also, see that we have the highest number of chronic homeless, and chronic homeless are those that have been uh homeless for a very long

1:58:33time in addition to having uh disability so that those would be our longer term most vulnerable people. And then the next slide is uh homeless per capita.

1:58:46And again, you see this one we weren't number one, which is uh but we are the second highest uh compared to uh the St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Pinales County COC. So I think this also, again, data driving why we do what we do and uh and what we've done so far. So Uh I I came back, I came to you um a little over not quite two years ago in in September of 2020, and

1:59:16you appl approved a plan for us uh to rehouse 225 of our homeless neighbors in 180 days. We wanted to take some that were unsheltered elderly, some that were unsheltered but not elderly, uh unsheltered chronically. homeless and families. And we were using about four million dollars for from the emergency solutions grant. And this was a plan that you approved and what I want to

1:59:46show you is what we did with the funding and what we accomplished. So We accomplish this based on some principles. So we look at data and we look at best practices. And the first was mentioned already by Don that it's a coordinated entry system. So everybody gets a standard assessment and comes through one door. It's not necessarily a physical door, but it's one system that they're coming through. We triage The

2:00:17people so we help the highest needs first. This is a very common practice. It happens in emergency rooms. It happens when we assess our seniors. It's a very common practice, and so we have also employed that. And then we have a housing-first philosophy, meaning we take people straight from the streets and the encounter. encampments and put them into houses and and into housing rather than this latter approach where

2:00:47they go into emergency shelter And then perhaps in transitional housing and they have to earn their way through the various steps. And then the other uh the other principle, best practice is that clients have a choice in their housing and also in their services. So, based on this, I'm going to we're going to be sharing actually three to four very successful Achievements that we've had. The first is the achievements

2:01:18on our housing surge. We said we were gonna house 225 people in 180 days. We did not do it in 180 days, but we did house 254 households, 56 families, 86 children, 198 singles, 368 total. individuals 30 elderly and we did that in one year. Thank you very much for your support and for the leadership of the C O C people

2:01:49all in the middle of a pandemic. This is what was done. In addition to this, and I don't have a slide for it, but we also created 14 new permanent supportive housing beds at uh we with our partner agency, Saint Vincent de Paul. We purchased and renovated uh eight uh multifamily units. Commissioner Fitzpatrick, you were there at the grand opening. Uh we created 14 new permanent supportive housing beds. We use community development block grant,

2:02:20coronavirus funds, and SHIP funds. And we had people that strictly came right off the street. I met Joe, who 20 years was in, lived in the woods. And he said to me in a meeting we had recently that it was the first time that he he thought he would ever have a microwave and a refraction. refrigerator and no he didn't use his dishwasher yet because he only had one fork, one spoon and one bowl and he didn't need to use the dishwasher.

2:02:53So in addition to housing all these people and building new housing, we also opened up a family shelter.

2:03:03Thanks, Marcy. Uh and I'd like to start two points. Number one is to uh gratefully acknowledge the Board of County Commissioners and the County and the citizens of Pasco to fund the renovations to uh the old Boys and Girls Club on Youth Lane. And we do have uh an open house planned. You'll be receiving invitations for Wednesday, April thirteenth. uh eleven AM to two PM and we'd like to give uh each of you an opportunity to speak and and

2:03:33address uh particularly the press that'll be there. Um As you know, it's the old Boys and Girls Club. Uh it was county owned and and funded the renovations to the two buildings. Uh I believe all of you have seen it. And in fact it's nine separate rooms with a large common area. Um It's been uh very successful. The primary ab primary objective here is Get these families housed as quickly as possible. We don't want to warehouse them at the family shelter,

2:04:03rather, we want them to be housed as quickly as we can. We chose uh some experienced uh uh individuals in an organization to run the shelter. Uh We went out with an RFP. Uh the winning agency is uh Catholic Charities. Um And uh they have vast experience of and have done a very admirable job of getting this up off the ground. And the shelter actually opened on October twentieth.

2:04:35Uh I won't read all of this, but you'll get some idea here. The the uh residents that we've had in the shelter have varied tremendously been uh single mom to uh grandparents with children. It's uh It's been absolutely remarkable. We have actually served forty-one children at this site. Actually it's a few more than that since October. And uh the next slide will give you an indication of the success that we've had. Eighteen families have been served since

2:05:05opening. Uh there was some interruption to services because of COVID where we had to suspend intakes and we had a couple of vacant rooms, but we've passed that. Six families have successfully transitioned to permanent housing, one family via Section 8. uh one family discharging uh to permanent housing in New York State. uh part of a diversion plan. Uh we used uh our we have 104 emergency housing vouchers. We've started to use those for the families that are in the shelter. Uh

2:05:35four families exited and moved in with uh other family support. And we have several families currently in line to be engaged in the shelter. Um I would paint it as enormously successful. We've uh encountered a great many bumps in the road, but to the Yeah. Uh recognition of Catholic charities and the coalition staff. I think it's been extremely successful. It would be my hope that at some point in the future we can do a similar Um program and services

2:06:06on the east side. It's very difficult for a family if they are on the east side. Uh while they are homeless, many times they have tentacles into the community, maybe job, children going to a particular school. It's really a hardship to expect them to come to this side of the county. So given the success of this and and uh the open house when you see the operation and what we've uh really been able to uh achieve uh I hope it's something that you'll support in the future.

2:06:36So we've explained to you that we've housed people, that we've built housing, that we've had a successful shelter. I do also want to mention that we compete. As I said, we compete around the country for funding, and we've just recently received our funding. And I I'm very proud to say that the COC has doubled the amount of funding. Amount of funding that they get from 2018 to now, from $800,000 to

2:07:06$1.7 million that's going out to the community. So again, I want to say that this is the most movement, the most achievement, the most success that we have seen when it comes to homeless initiatives, probably in over a decade, if not longer. It is not over. Uh we're moving forward. We just completed a gaps analysis. I will go into a little bit more. We have uh federal

2:07:33and state

2:07:34funding.

2:07:35Should we bring her back maybe after some of the public hearing today?

2:07:40So we're well into the lunch hour. I don't have a meeting. Does anyone else

2:07:44Well Commissioner Moore does without

2:07:46Yeah no I I I let Commissioner Weight's going. Huh? How how how much longer do you have? Three more slides?

2:07:55Well, yeah. Board members, do you want her to come back? And p stop now for the lunch hour where it's twelve oh eight. Or um do you want to continue? I'm fine to continue but I do have questions.

2:08:11Yeah,

2:08:12but they have questions.

2:08:16Yeah.

2:08:21If you're all right, let's let her finish.

2:08:23And then maybe having come back. I'll I'll I'll have some questions I'll ask. But

2:08:26Okay, we'll see. Well let's try let's try and see if we can be done by twelve fifteen.

2:08:31Okay. We do have uh and you will see this in the future, uh, we've gotten about four and a half million dollars of home American rescue plan money, which is specifically for housing the homeless, and that will come to you, uh, as well as a coordinated entry study. The slide says since 10-1, 49 households have been housed, but it's actually 59 households, so it's it's been updated. I do want to just mention the key findings of our gaps analysis, and I said to note those

2:09:01circles. Families represent under 20% of our homeless population, but 49% of our beds are dedicated to families. Half the beds of the COC are dedicated to veterans and survivors of domestic violence. And remember you saw 80% of our homeless are single adults. And while overflow congregate non-congregate shelter beds were 100% filled, remaining shelter beds were utilized at 50%.

2:09:33So there are some recommendations that have come out of our gaps analysis and uh I I want to mention those uh for individual homelessness to increase the uh resources. For individuals, for housing single adults. For chronic homelessness, dedicate permanent supportive housing to individuals and ensure that there are supportive services and deeply affordable housing. Decrease

2:10:03the number, the length of time for people that are experiencing homelessness, and especially. Uh the study found that the longest path to housing was for those that were in shelters. So we want to make sure that our shelters become housing focused and housing first. And then going on to domestic violence, it's increasing around the country to make sure that there's resources. And we did just receive a grant. for

2:10:34over three hundred thousand dollars for domestic violence programs and um affordable housing we will be using the home ARP funding for uh affordable housing initiatives for the homeless. So that does conclude the presentation and Don and I are happy to answer any questions.

2:10:53Right and and before um before we get into questions, I just want to let you know I don't know if you've seen it yet, but I've had two blasts here that Mackenzie Scott, I think that uh she's the Bezos ex-wife, I think that's her last name. Um anyway, she just gave eleven million dollars to West Pasco Habitat. So Commissioner Mariano.

2:11:17Thank you, Madam Chairman Mariano. A couple years ago I asked you for a point-in-time count. I wanted to see who was from Pasco County and who's not. I've never got any information on that. Now that you have two more years behind you, I'd like to see how many of these people are from Pasco County and how many have been bust in from somewhere else.

2:11:32We we did uh Commissioner add that question to uh the surveys that we were doing. So I I can get back to you with that information. I I'm I apologize.

2:11:42That's right. I'd like you to share it with the board as well. Um You know, I'm I'm l I'm I'm glad we're doing the housing first, but I'm a little concerned what's gonna happen when the money runs out. These people are in homes. What are we gonna do? in two years when there's not the carers money, there's other other money's not available, how are these people gonna be making on their on their own if you looked at all that and how do you think the success rate's gonna be?

2:12:03Yeah so um so when people get into housing we are able to as Don said help them for twelve twenty four months but we do have other resources. We have what's called tenant bait rental assistance which is funding from another stream. We have the emergency housing vouchers we work uh very closely with the housing authority So they have those twenty-four months to begin to place them into other programs. They also like what's happening in Rosalie Rondew,

2:12:33people are going through Vogue Rehab and getting jobs. So so we're so we are and we'll have that connection to Am AM skills. So they they have those services that will help them to transition into into housing and other services and other funding as they need it.

2:12:53Okay. Um you know you mentioned Metro Metro Metropolitan Ministries and Sword and the Spoon. Um I didn't hear you mention anything as far as the Rope Center goes.

2:13:01Oh no, I was referring exclusively to outreach efforts, people that are on the streets with notebooks, PCs. uh meeting with uh the homeless whether they be in the woods or on the streets.

2:13:12And that's the brig b brigade from Metropolitan Ministry. Right.

2:13:16Yeah. And so it was just uh with reference to outreach efforts.

2:13:20Okay. One of the things that um The rope center we had done for them a few years back was we we built a building for them on Rhodes Road right off US nineteen. Uh it houses twenty males, twenty females, all in a bunk bed situation. Okay. So th they've got land to the side of it where they could actually build another structure like that. And this could be more catered to Ladies on their own.

2:13:44I think we need men.

2:13:46Well well what what that would do is you build that structure over there. You can put twenty more men in the other facility because it's not always full that way and help the ladies. And it might even accommodate, I really like the buildings designed in Metropolitan Ministries where sometimes you can a small little space, you can actually put a little family in there. that type of thing may fit there as well to be looked at. Uh I know they're gonna be coming to you, I think they've got like another day or two. before cut off uh as far as like applying.

2:14:13Yeah, so I think it's I mean there's a Infrastructure already in place as a group that's already running it, that's doing it, that's doing a I think a great job. Yes. Talk they they do take some chronic folks that can't go on. Absolutely. kick them out.

2:14:28We're in communication with Sue. Sue. Uh she does a fantastic job with her clientele, and we support them as we can financially as well. Okay. All right. Uh that's all I have. Thank you.

2:14:38Yeah. Madam Chair. Yeah. Um with the Rope Center, I would like to see if they can expand their hours or do they have someone there that's their full time or if someone gets called that they don't they don't have to just go there Monday, Wednesday or Friday morning because there are elderly and disabled people out on the streets and I would like to see them to make sure we can get them into housing. I know you guys have put hotel vouchers and everything like that, but if we have these resources with the rope center and other

2:15:09connections, then we should be I would like to see them being utilized more first.

2:15:13I I will say that uh W when we contact Sue if we have a particular as I did yesterday with an elderly gentleman, she's very quick to respond and and willing to work outside of those hours if they're able to.

2:15:30Okay. Also I know we're doubled w compared to Saint Pete, Penellas County, for our percent for homeless population unsheltered. So I like to see what we can do and what are they doing differently and I know they have a ground zero. So if we can get them into a facility instead of just putting them right into a hotel. And we can bring them to a ground zero. A a base location.

2:15:58Okay, I've I've Are you are you referring to something like the uh safe harbor that's run by the uh sheriff and Pinellas? It's a three hundred bed.

2:16:07There's a

2:16:07few of them out there.

2:16:08Yeah. Is that is that what you're referring to, Commissioner?

2:16:11Yes. Yeah, well e every time I brought that up. Nobody here wants that here, right? That's not the solution. So but we do need solutions. I would I would very much like to see A boys and girls club type um family shelter on your side. I think that would be great if we could look for can your money be used for something like that over there?

2:16:33It

2:16:34it could be

2:16:34used

2:16:34for from the community development block grant, just like that's what we used. It was one point two million dollars of community development block fund money.

2:16:42Well

2:16:42hopefully someone's applying over there.

2:16:45Or someone's doing it. Okay, it's past twelve fifteen, so I gotta let everybody go. Um great job. Um and maybe this money from hab um habitat uh the eleven million dollars can Help people here in our county.

2:17:01And you mentioned real quick about location. It's definitely gonna be finding the pr good location of where to put these centers as well.

2:17:12Yeah, so with Habitat maybe that would open up the door to go take a look at that leisure lane project again to go forward. And and by the way, I wanna thank you, Don, when we were clearing out that. Last section down there that had to be done was a major job by our our team. Um thank you for going out there to trying to get reach out to those people one on one to try to get them services. So thank you for that.

2:17:31The um the hotel that you were gonna buy, the motel, did that that didn't happen?

2:17:35No, uh a developer came in with a better offer.

2:17:41So we're we're this is being broadcast, so we are interested in buying a hotel or motel uh or a multifamily unit. So We have money. And

2:17:52why can't we build

2:17:53Well we can do that too. It just takes longer.

2:17:55It just will take longer, yeah.

2:17:56It takes longer and we can't do it as cheaply as the development committee. So

2:18:00just you know the Rosalie Rondew property, I put on beds for seventy five thousand dollars apiece, which is remarkable. A unit was a hundred and thirty five thousand.

2:18:11One final comment, if I may, I'd like to acknowledge uh Thomas O'Connor Bruno, our Chief Operating Officer, and Jennifer Watts, who's in charge of our service delivery. And finally, I have to say something about Morsey. Um She came in here and it was plug and play. She brought experience And vitality Two and and we've actually changed the structure of the C O C and the Coalition to reflect really what is ideal and we have a leadership

2:18:41team under Marcy that's really Paving the path. For us, and I we would not be where we are today if it weren't for her uh her involvement. I just uh so appreciate what she's done.

2:18:54All right. Well we've kept everyone twenty minutes past. So thank you very much. What's time?