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HomeMy WebLinkAboutShelter House Program Summary1 Shelter House Program Overview and Activities Founded in 1983, the mission of Shelter House is to provide safe shelter and to help people improve the quality of their lives as they move beyond homelessness. Shelter House creates opportunities for change and through this change we guide people to their own housing and maintaining that housing. We not only provide a bed to sleep in, but an array of programs that help men, women and their families get back on their feet. We keep children in school, help men and women get back to work, assist the disabled and elderly to access benefits and health care and move individuals and families into their own homes. In so doing, Shelter House improves the health, safety, and well-being of hundreds of individuals each year and our community at large. Shelter House strives to assist the men, women, and families with whom we work to achieve a more permanent housing placement and to realize increased economic stability. Our primary objective is to facilitate clients’ transition from homelessness to permanent affordable housing through leveraging both employment income and mainstream resources. We do this through a continuum of services: Emergency Services: Shelter House provides Emergency Shelter for men, women, and children experiencing homelessness (average stays are 45 days). We maintain a 70-bed shelter facility (for much of the last year capacity was limited to 45 to better comply with COVID-19 social distancing protocols) with dormitory style sleeping and bathing accommodations for single adults and private bedrooms and bathing facilities for families. The shelter runs at capacity most every night. In the last year, children were 16% of those served; 64% of adult women reported histories of domestic violence and 27% were actively fleeing a domestic violence situation; over 50% of adults reported suffering from mental illness or other disabling conditions; 26% suffer from chronic health conditions; all are living in poverty. Transitional Housing for Veterans experiencing homelessness is embedded in the shelter facility with 10 of the 70 beds prioritized for veterans who constitute 10% of the adults served whereas they are only 5% of the general population countywide. Breakfast and dinner are served daily for residents of Shelter House; meals are nutritious and balanced. For the past eight winters Shelter House has provided a Winter Emergency Shelter at a satellite location targeted to homeless and chronically homeless individuals living on the street who are unwilling or unable to access existing shelter services. The Winter Shelter typically runs from early December through mid-March. Services are limited to essential shelter, meaning a warm, safe place to sleep for the night (cots, sleeping mats and bedding are provided) and bathroom facilities. 691 unique individuals were sheltered in the past year through both emergency shelter interventions combined for over 20,000 nights of shelter. Drop-In Services are offered daily and include showers, laundry, phone, clothing and toiletries donations and access to Shelter House staff. Activities include haircuts, legal aid, mental health counseling, medical and psychiatric outreach, and payee services. These services are available to the public and are utilized by as many as 450 unique persons annually not currently residing at the emergency shelter. In April 2021 Street Outreach services were funded for the first time in Johnson County with one fulltime dedicated Street Outreach Engagement Specialist. Hundreds of outreach contacts were made in the past year resulting in 69 individuals, who had been living on the streets, in parking ramps, and encampments, moving in to permanent housing. 2 Eviction Prevention and Diversion services were initiated and funded for the first time in response to the pandemic. Shelter House prevented homelessness for 701 individuals and 418 households in 2021 disbursing $398,937 in rent and utility payments. Housing Services: Rapid Rehousing is a Housing First approach that minimizes the amount of time an individual or family spends experiencing homelessness and rapidly helps them stabilize in their own housing. Rapid Rehousing (RRH) is an evidenced based practice that solves the immediate crisis of homelessness, while connecting families or individuals with appropriate community resources to address other service needs. Shelter House executes each of the three core components of RRH utilizing a progressive engagement approach: (1) Housing identification, (2) Financial assistance (security deposit, move-in assistance and rent assistance for three to six months), and (3) Housing stability case management through which people are connected to jobs, services and the support needed to successfully maintain their housing. Stability services continue for up to six months after rent assistance ends so as to ensure a sustained housing placement. 410 individuals were served with 93% achieving permanent housing, and 79% exited with at least one source of income. Shelter House housing case managers worked in partnership with Habitat for Humanity to ensure each household placed in permanent housing was provided essential furniture items on move-in day turning an empty apartment into a home (875 pieces of furniture delivered). Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) combines and links permanent, affordable housing (tenants have the legal right to remain in the unit as long as they wish, as defined by the terms of a renewable lease agreement and pay no more than 30% of income for housing) with flexible, voluntary support services designed to help tenants stay housed and address health issues while building the necessary skills to live as independently as possible. PSH is an evidence-based housing intervention prioritized for individuals with complex health and behavioral health issues (higher needs than those typically resolved through RRH) and has been proven to significantly reduce returns to jail and homelessness and reliance on emergency health services, while improving overall quality of life. The Fairweather Lodge is a recovery focused, peer driven PSH program for adults experiencing homelessness and diagnosed with a serious persistent mental illness, many of whom have a co-occurring disorder (COD). The model is predicated on the belief that people who live and work together, and have significant control over their lives, can overcome homelessness and recover from their mental illnesses. It is a form of psychosocial rehabilitation that incorporates the basic principles of group process and peer support. Research and experience have shown that many clients fail in individual housing placements because of a combination of social isolation and lack of consistent service support which is exacerbated by affordability problems (most frequently individuals are moderately if not severely housing cost- burdened). In contrast, the Fairweather Lodge program ensures affordable housing (savings are in part generated from the shared living approach) coupled with embedded support services. The Lodge experience has shown that a self-governing group living with built-in peer support provides functional control of mental illness symptoms and combats homelessness by creating housing conditions that tenants trust. Shelter House owns four homes located on both the east and west sides of Iowa City and in Coralville and maintains a total occupancy of 22 single adults. Cross Park Place (formerly known as FUSE—Housing First) opened in January of 2019 and was at full occupancy by early May 2019 and has operated at full occupancy ever since. Cross Park Place provides 24 one-bedroom apartments with on-site offices and clinic space for case managers and embedded health and behavioral health services. Cross Park Place is a Housing First intervention—an approach based on the concept that for an individual experiencing homelessness the first and primary need is to obtain stable housing (a basic necessity), and that other issues (such as getting a job, attending to substance use or 3 other health issues) that may affect the individual can and should be addressed voluntarily and only after housing is obtained. Cross Park Place is targeted for chronically homeless adults, who categorically have a disabling condition, and demonstrate frequent cross-system service utilization. Shelter House engaged in the FUSE planning approach to identify and prioritize eligible participants for this new PSH program. FUSE is a data-driven model identifying frequent users of jails, shelters, hospitals and other crisis public services with the intention of improving their lives through permanent supportive housing. We realize little to no turnover at Cross Park Place with all 24 units occupied. 501 Southgate will open in mid-June 2022 and is slated to be at full occupancy by July 2022. 501 Southgate is essentially a replication of Cross Park Place in building design, program approach, and targeted population and offers 36 one-bedroom apartments with on-site offices and clinic space for case managers and embedded health and behavioral health services. Beginning in 2020, Mainstream Vouchers have been used to expand Permanent Supportive Housing opportunities through a scattered site approach. In partnership with the Iowa City Housing Authority 78 Mainstream Vouchers have been assigned through Coordinated Entry to households indicating need for Permanent Supportive Housing but where no permanent supportive housing unit is otherwise available. Qualifying households are single adults and families currently experiencing homelessness or chronic homelessness or have previously experienced homelessness and are currently a client in permanent supportive housing or rapid rehousing, or at risk of experiencing homelessness. All participants demonstrate evidence of one or multiple disabling conditions in combination with domestic violence, poor credit histories, criminal records, and no or extremely low or fixed incomes that severely limit their ability to access affordable housing. Shelter House utilized COVID response funds in 2020 and 2021 to fund supportive services for these households (housing location and placement, case management, life skills, employment assistance, and more). While Shelter House has continued to provide supportive services for all participating households, the effort remains unfunded by the public sector in 2022. Shelter House is seeking public funding to support these high-risk households while continuing to grow permanent supportive housing through a scattered site approach. Supported Employment is predicated on the understanding that employment is both an outcome and a core component of recovery. Research has shown that supported employment helps individuals achieve and sustain recovery. Shelter House provides Supported Employment for tenants in our Permanent Supportive Housing through Fresh Starts Janitorial Services. Through Supported Employment people with mental illnesses discover paths of self-sufficiency and recovery rather than disability and dependence. Most people with serious mental illnesses want to work and yet too often find little support in traditional settings and frequently face both institutional and societal barriers. Supported employment ensures that all people who want to work are offered work; services are integrated with comprehensive mental health treatment; personalized benefits counseling is provided to every client; clients receive job supports for as long as required. A Peer Support Specialist has lived experience; serves as a consumer advocate, provides consumer information and peer support for consumers in a variety of settings, and performs a wide range of tasks to support consumers in living their own lives and directing their own recovery and wellness process. The Peer Support Specialist models competency in recovery and wellness. Peer Support is an evidenced based practice and an important component of the recovery process that respects the perspective and contributions of those with lived experience of mental illness and substance use disorder. In 2020 Shelter House incorporated trained, part-time paid Peer Support Specialists into the Fairweather Lodge programming and expanded Peer Support to Cross Park Place in 2021.