Maricopa Regional Continuum of Care: December Newsletter

Race Equity Training 

Racial Equity Partners will be providing a training on The Impact of Race: Understanding Internalized Racism. More information and registration are available on the CoC Event Calendar. 

Workforce Development Panel 

MAG will be hosting a Workforce Development Panel on January 26, 2023 at 11:00 am. Please save the date; more information will be available soon. 

Point-in-Time Count 

The Maricopa County PIT Count is scheduled for Tuesday, January 24th, 2023. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact your local Coordinator for the city/town you would like to volunteer in. The Coordinator will provide training to all volunteers prior to the count, distribute information and documents for the count, and assign volunteers to a specific area to count. On the morning of the count, volunteers will go to a specific assigned area to interview people experiencing homelessness and complete surveys in a smartphone app.  

Ending the HIV Epidemic in Maricopa County

Kate Thomas, Senior Health Educator with the Ryan White Part A (RWPA) Program will be holding a virtual training “Ending the HIV Epidemic in Maricopa County” on January 19, 2023, from 12:00 P.M. – 2 P.M. Register here! If your agency is interested in accessing additional trainings, please have them contact (Kate.Thomas@maricopa.gov) 

The Arizona Community Leadership Academy, welcome the next cohort of Leaders as they join the efforts to End the HIV, Hepatitis C and STI Epidemics in Arizona! The next Leadership Academy will be held January 28 and February 11, 2023. Please provide this Arizona Community Leadership Academy 5.0 Registration Flyer to anyone that would benefit from this Academy. More information is included in the flyer. The Arizona Community Leadership Academy was recently awarded a Bronze Award by the Chief Learning Officer Magazine for Excellence in Partnership.  Please contact Rose at 602-525-4035 for any questions.  

The Continuum of Care Board met and reviewed Affordable Housing trainings and opportunities that MAG is working on in coordination with other partners. The Board also heard an update on the Point in Time Count. The Board approved the Homelessness Trends Report for Quarter 3. All Board meetings will have an optional in person attendance and encourage folks to join.  

The Continuum of Care Committee voted to approve 6 new CoC Committee members, Patricia Scott-Lopez of Arizona Complete Health, Christopher Wallace of the VA, Jennifer Page of Mercy Care, Sara Sims of Phoenix Elementary School District, Emily Walsh of the Maricopa County Public Health Department, and Nathan Smith of the Phoenix Rescue Mission. Tyler Rosensteel of Solari provided an update on the 2-1-1 Pilot Project, in which triages families seeking housing assistance. 

The Coordinated Entry Committee (CEC) has welcomed new members in November including Deanna Grogan with City of Mesa, Julia Maciel with Department of Economic Security, Julie Wonsowicz-Moore with Maricopa County Correctional Health, Michele Beck with Community Bridges, Inc., and Trevor South Southwick with Arizona Housing, Inc.  On December 15th, the Housing Match Team from the Human Services Campus and UMOM will be presenting an overview of the CE referral process.  During the CEC meeting on December 29th, the Community Resource Referral Center (CRRC) is going to present on the VA System Flow and the importance of the DD214. Homebase has begun to hold focus groups throughout the community for the Coordinated Entry Evaluation.   

The Data Committee outlined potential solutions to multiple data quality concerns regarding HMIS data entry. These concerns included zip code entry, homelessness start date, and income sub-assessment entries. In December, the group will review these solutions, the Quarter 3 Homelessness Trends Report, as well as the HMIS Satisfaction Survey questions. Work surrounding the creation of a baseline for non-HUD funded SSO and Outreach programs will continue into the new year.  

The ESG Committee continues to work on creating and coordinating a funding matrix for all ESG recipients to compare funding across each ESG funding entity. December 7th marks the beginning of the ESG training series hosted by CSH, starting with an ESG 101 discussion. ESG recipients are encouraged to invite their teams to attend this training. Please reach out to Cleo Warner at cwarner@azmag.gov for more details.  

The Lived Experience Committee (LEC) will be onboarding new members of the LEC on December 2, 2022. This month, the LEC will provide feedback on the Diversion Handout. The handout will be used as a guide for non-homeless service providers to initiate a diversion conversation with folks that are experiencing homelessness. The LEC, continues to work on the Shelter Bill of Rights. 

The Local Jurisdiction Committee (LJC) met to review housing targets for Pathways Home, including a discussion on the challenge of ongoing costs associated with maintaining existing shelter units through 2024. An update was provided on the Public Education Campaign, and current next steps are to further develop the visual identity and continuing to fundraise, and the toolkit is expected to begin appearing in front of MAG committees in January 2023. The Committee’s Diversion Programs Workgroup had its inaugural meeting and introduced its goal of creating a landscape map of existing diversion programs in the region. 

The Race Equity Committee had a discussion about the ongoing assessments of the coordinated entry system. Staff from HomeBase presented on their work to date, including data related to racial disparities in assessments. Co-Chairs then welcomed staff from Race Equity Partners to review a series of community-wide trainings that will begin in December. The trainings will occur quarterly in 2023 and will be online and possibly recorded to be included in the future learning management system. The first virtual webinar training, “The Impact of Race: Understanding Internalized Racism” will take place at Noon, Thursday, December 15, 2022. Please register here and share this information with your staff and community!   

The Chronic Workgroup has begun to dive into data on chronic shelter stayers that have been 98+ days in shelter.  The Human Services Campus (HSC) and Mercy Care screened 346 chronic individuals that did not have a VI-SPDAT (Vulnerability Index - Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool) completed or fall into the “No Housing Intervention” range, 25 were identified SMI.  HSC will be staffing the 25 folks during Case Conferencing. Coordination and collaboration efforts are being made to connect those individuals to their clinics and have assessments completed.  

The Youth Provider Workgroup welcomed Amber Maiberger from the Action Nexus at Arizona State University, who presented on Shared Housing as a solution for youth experiencing homelessness. The Workgroup also discussed the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project and agreed to have two brainstorming sessions regarding youth-focused interventions that are not currently operating in our community and connecting institutions to ensure that youth are not being released into homelessness. If you are interested in attending either of these brainstorming sessions, please email Haleigh Owens at howens@azmag.gov.  

The Data Analytics Workgroup continues to work through questions concerning returns to homelessness, focusing on the particular metric of reentry into the system after exiting to a permanent housing destination. If you are interested in data analytics and want to join the workgroup, please reach out to Cleo Warner at cwarner@azmag.gov.  

The Outreach Collaborative agreed on the following mission statement: “Outreach teams and municipalities collaborating to improve access to resources and services that will lead to housing and overcoming barriers for the unsheltered population.” The group continues to work on improvements for the outreach viewer and has completed the outreach mapping. The Collaborative has begun working on standardizing outreach policies and procedures.