HOMEWARD PIKES PEAK

The Permanent Coordinating Organization for Homeless Services in the Pikes Peak Region

Annual Report: 2007

Overview

If we were to characterize the most outstanding aspect of this past year, 2007 would be "The Year of Collaboration".  The two main areas where this quality has been manifested are mental health services and the Housing First program, both for chronically homeless individuals diagnosed with substance abuse and mental health problems.  In the past, this has been the greatest gap in services in our continuum of care.

The lead agencies in these areas are The Mental Health Collaborative and Harbor House Collaborative.  The executive director of Homeward Pikes Peak sits on both boards of directors.  The catalyst to change in 2007 was the use of HUD awarded housing vouchers from the Super NOFA Bonus Grant, coordinated by HPP, to provide shelter to those who live in the state of chronic homelessness.

During 2007, nearly twenty-five individuals were moved from the streets of Colorado Springs to very small apartments where they received services cooperatively provided by the staffs of The Mental Health Collaborative, Harbor House and Homeward Pikes Peak.  (These individuals tend to be averse to treatment, yet utilize the majority of homeless service dollars in any community.) The impact of this program was certainly felt by the individuals, some of whom had been living the streets for over twenty years; but there is another impact for the community:  The cost for an individual in this program is from $12,000 to $18,000 per year.  The cost to ignore that person and to leave him on the streets is approximately $54,000, resulting from police, fire, AMR and emergency room costs.  Ultimately each set of costs is borne by the taxpayer, and the arithmetic here indicates a savings of nearly $1 million dollars a year.

Long Range Planning

The Five Year Blueprint to House Every Citizen of Colorado Springs was a plan that ran in conjunction with the continuum of care from 2003 to 2007.  We are presently in the process of writing a successor plan that will span ten years, a format now requested by HUD, the funder of our Super NOFA grants.

Two components will work in tandem to create the successor plan: 

An advisory committee, consisting of representatives from homeless service agencies, the business community, city and county government, police, school districts, healthcare providers and formerly homeless will be appointed to oversee the format, progress and final draft of the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness.  (This HUD-recommended title is used guardedly, with our knowing that there are a few individuals in each community who truly do not want to end their homelessness.)

A writing committee, consisting  mainly of representatives from the service provider community, will examine fourteen areas service that comprise the continuum of care for needy and homeless individuals and families in the Pikes Peak region.  They will work from a rubric that will require answers to several service-related questions, including needs, goals and confounding variables for the next ten years.

Work on the Ten Year Plan will commence early in 2008.

CHAP (Comprehensive Homeless Service Providers)

The CHAP organization is chaired by the executive director of Homeward Pikes Peak.  Approximately thirty to forty agencies are represented at monthly meetings which offer both structured presentations from member and outside organizations and unstructured opportunities for introductions, networking and collaborative ventures.  Planning for the Super NOFA Grant and the periodic Homeless Headcounts takes place at these meetings. Communication about the progress of the Client Management System (Homeless Management Information System) and the ID Card System also occurs at the CHAP meetings.

These meetings are always open to the community; and interested individuals, including those new to the area, students and those wanting to work or volunteer with the homeless are encouraged to attend.

Small Mental Health Providers Collaborative

Monthly meetings are organized and chaired by the executive director of Homeward Pikes Peak.  This collaborative was formed specifically to address the fact that mental health services were not available to homeless individuals unless they were grandfathered into a system or involved in an emergency situation.

Over the past two years several small homeless health service providers have expanded services, albeit in a very modest fashion, to include mental health assistance for the chronically homeless.  These services include assessments, writing  prescriptions, providing pharmaceuticals and follow-up monitoring.

Another significant improvement in service that has occurred is the participation of The Mental Health Collaborative in providing services in the community.  One of their missions is to train personnel to act as resource advocates, or mentors, to the mentally ill; and these trained individuals have played a great role in the success of our Housing First program.  Since HUD provides, in general, only "bricks and mortar" funding,  we are required  to search elsewhere for service and support dollars.  Therefore, the resource advocates fill a large financial gap by working either as volunteers or being paid a modest honorarium.

The Mental Health Collaborative is the latest iteration of  Coalition Hope, which was founded by Homeward Pikes Peak and Pikes Peak United Way in 2005.

In this area, we are "taking small bites out of a large problem", but the situation continues to improve.

Super NOFA

The HUD Super NOFA grant continues to be the largest single source of funding for sheltering the homeless in the Pikes Peak region.  The Super NOFA results were late in being released last year, so none was reported for 2006.  When the results were finally released in February, we again scored in the 99+% range of funding and were awarded the maximum of $250,000 for the bonus grant competition.

Announcements were back on track for the 2007 cycle, with the results being released just before Christmas.  Again, we did well.  In the pro rata share area, we received $983,614, or 99.8% of possible dollars.  We again maxed the bonus grant at $250,000.

In the past I have not mentioned the details of the grant and where the money actually goes, but I think doing so might enhance the readers' feel for the scope of the impact in the community.

Bonus Grant:

The $250,000 will provide  Housing First vouchers (see "Overview" above) for five (more) chronically homeless individuals, who are co-diagnosed with mental health and substance abuse issues, for five years.  At the end of that period, we can reapply for the vouchers and renewals will not count against the "pro rata share" (see below) of money allocated by HUD to our community. 

In effect, this is a perpetual program for people who may never be able to achieve self-sufficiency and who need to be off the streets. Longitudinal studies have shown a retention rate of over 80% in these programs, with most individuals showing a drastic decline in substance use and a return to at least part-time employment if physically and mentally able.

In 2003 and 2004 the maximum amount of the Bonus Grant was $750,000 per year, and we were awarded these amounts.  In 2005 the maximum was lowered by HUD to $250,000. No reasons were given for the decrease.

Pro Rata Share:

This is a yearly dollar amount allocated to El Paso County by HUD which reflects a formula that is demographically based.  The allocation was about $1,034,000 when I arrived in 2003 and has decreased gradually to $985,751 in 2007.  As stated above, we received $983,614 this year, or 99.8%.

            Individual awards this year were as follows:

            Harbor House               $390,000                   Substance Abuse Treatment

            Greccio Housing             128,631                   Transitional Housing

            Pikes Peak United Way  141,776                    Homeless Management Info System

            Urban Peak                     102,585                   Teen Shelter

            Partners-In-Housing         88,784                   Transitional Housing

            Liza's Place                        50,000                   Women's Transitional Housing

            Partners-In-Housing         81,838                   Colorado House

                                                  $983,614

Homeless Headcount

During 2007 only one count of the homeless was done.  The reasons were that

1.) we had already determined that there is no seasonal migration in and out of the Pikes Peak region and

2.) many homeless individuals were beginning to refuse to complete the forms, saying, "We just did one of these."

So in 2007 we did one count in January.  The results showed a slight decline in numbers of homeless, which we attributed, in part, to the success of our Housing First program.  (We typically count in the 1200 range.) I continue to believe that we have in the neighborhood of 2000 homeless people in the area.  There is a large margin for error in the count of chronically homeless given that there are certain places (some homeless camps, the Manitou railroad caves, e.g.) that are not safe for counters.

Also, a margin for error occurs in the count of crisis homeless individuals because they are usually women and children who tend to "couch surf" for a time before accessing services.  So they remain out of the system.

We do use state of the art methods, but temper them with common sense and educated extrapolations.

Annual Conference on Homelessness

On September 24 Homeward Pikes Peak hosted its Fifth Annual Conference on Homelessness in Colorado Springs in conjunction with the City of Colorado Springs.

Once again, the attendance record was broken: up 10% to 110 from last year.  The keynote this year was Steve Bigari, CEO of I3 Consulting, author, philanthropist and founder of the America's Family, a foundation dedicated to bettering the lives of America's working poor.

He spoke on the involvement of the private sector in helping the needy and homeless, a theme that has been stressed over the years by Homeward Pikes Peak.

Each year this conference provides an incredible opportunity for all sectors of the community to meet around the issue of homelessness, to gain concrete information on programs new and old and to network with colleagues.   The bottom line is that ideas are both shaped and shared on how best to serve the homeless and needy populations of the Pikes Peak area.

Annual Forum on Homelessness

On November 7 the Homeward Pikes Peak Annual Community Forum was held in partnership with the Colorado Springs Police Department.  The dual intent of the forum was to introduce the community to the new ID card system being implemented for use by the needy and homeless who access services in the community (see topic below) and to acquaint the community with eight new and innovative programs designed to assist the needy and homeless through the continuum of care from the pre-homeless stage to home ownership .  In addition, local agencies staffed approximately fifteen tables where information was promulgated to those interested.

Over 125 agency staff and community members participated. Television and press coverage was extensive.

Client Management and ID Card Systems

The Client Management System, formerly known as the Homeless Management Information System, continues on-line from its inception in 2006 and is expanding steadily throughout the community of providers of services to the homeless and needy.

We are able to demonstrate to agencies the advantages of participation is the system, including ease of generating data for reports required from various funders, more accurate measurements of indicators of success and the ability to better target programs to the needs of clients.

An important factor is that this is a HUD mandated system, and failure of any municipality to implement it will result in financial penalties relating to the Super NOFA Grant.

Additionally, the first hardware configuration to enable an agency to issue ID cards to clients was delivered in December of 2007 and the first card was printed Christmas week.  The Downtown Partnership and BID of Colorado Springs made implementation of the ID card system possible for three agencies, participating as beta-testers, through a $20,000 grant for this purpose.

We expect to have ID cards for approximately 85% of clients by the close of 2008.

For clients with these cards, there will be an ease of registration at other agencies, since the reading of a bar code will replace hours of filling out redundant forms at each agency.  For agencies, better demographic information will enable them to more efficiently target and allocate their service dollars, with the end result being more relevant services for clients.

For the community, our aim is to direct service users into custom designed self-sufficiently programs; i.e., giving them a hand up, not a hand out and a great opportunity to get off the streets.  For those physically or mentally unable to achieve self-sufficiency, services will continue to be provided.

This system will also mitigate the errors in the Homeless Headcount as we rely increasingly on data collected to provide more concrete numbers.

Fundraising

Homeward Pikes Peak serves a great number of service provider agencies in the Pikes Peak region, and does not ask for any financial support from them.  This is out of respect to their tight budgets as well as our desire for every possible dollar to be directed to the needy and homeless. 

HPP has a staff of one, with no outside help, except for Pikes Peak United Way's provision of space and phone, computer and payroll services.  Homeward Pikes Peak is not a United Way Community Partner Agency and receives no direct funding from United Way

Our major sources of funding were Concept Restaurants, which sponsors the Annual Gala and Golf Tournament, and which made over $36,000 this year; the City of Colorado Springs, donating $20,000 this year and the Daniels Fund at $15,000.

Additional sources were the Pikes Peak Community Foundation at $3,000 and a Board and staff internal fundraiser at $2,000, in which everyone participated.

The Board and the executive director readily acknowledge that the work we do would not be possible without the generosity of the above named organizations and the care they demonstrate for those less fortunate in our community.

The Executive Director

In addition to the activities mentioned throughout this report, the executive director makes himself available to any homeless service organization for pro bono consulting services.  He serves on the board of directors of three homeless service agencies and on the Safe Downtown Committee sponsored by the Downtown Partnership. 

The executive director presents programs to local organizations and interested groups to educate them on the topic of homelessness.  He offers in-classroom programs on homelessness to audiences from elementary school to postgraduate university level.  He works closely with the Colorado Springs Police Department to coordinate services and to foster better understanding of the homeless.

The bottom line is that the executive director is a community asset in the area of homelessness and has never said "no" to a request for service from any agency or interested group.