TRI-COUNTY CAP HOMELESS PROGRAMS
Green Haven Project (in the feasibility phase)
Permanent Housing for those who are homeless as a result of a chronic illness
Currently, under a feasibility study, the Green Haven will eventually provide PERMANENT housing to adults without dependent children who are homeless as a result of a chronic illness. Below are some of our preliminary documents. For more information on this project, or to offer assistance, please contact us at TCCAPHOMELESS@GMAIL.COMThe rough proposal:
MEMO
Monday, May 15, 2006
From: Tri County CAP Homeless Programs and Homeless Outreach/Prevention/Intervention Programs workers statewide.
To: Grafton County Commissioners
RE: “Green Haven” – a permanent housing solution
GOALS:
Our goal is to purchase a farm in Grafton County for organic farming, forest and cottage industries. To convert the farm into a model for “green” sustainability and community living that can therapeutically and efficiently provide for the needs of people experiencing homelessness including but not restricted to those with mental illness.
PURPOSE: To create a rural Safe Haven that is an off the grid, semi self sufficient sustainable community for people experiencing homelessness who may not thrive in traditional shelter settings due to behavior issues, illness and/or substance use disorders. The purpose of a Safe Haven is defined by HUD ‘as a home for the hard to serve, hard to reach person experiencing homelessness with severe mental illness who has been unwilling or unable to participate in supportive services”. Presently, and historically, NH has one Safe Haven, known as Harbor Homes, located in downtown Nashua with 10 beds and a slow turnover rate. It has long been known that this resource, while very important, was inadequate for NH’s needs. As Outreach Workers we encounter clients who suffer from mental illness whom we cannot serve adequately (or at all), due to lack of appropriate resources. Tragically, the result is often expensive and unprofessional band-aid measures such as motel rooms and one-way bus tickets, if not outright abandonment.
VISION: The Global Warming Crisis is real and so is the oil shortage. These are not just short-term problems for society and inaction will only exasperate them. It is not hard to see how these problems will negatively affect homelessness and society’s capacity to provide adequate services.
Within this context, people experiencing homelessness generally have an admirably modest carbon footprint but their financial burden on the Town Welfare/State Welfare/Medicaid/Social Security systems is larger than any other sub-population. Our goal is to build on the pride of not being profligate consumers while providing opportunities to engage in activities that can be of value to their own self-sufficiency and the greater community. It is believed that such activities can be highly therapeutic for disabled clients who almost always have skills and motivation by lack the opportunities to apply them. While activity in general is therapeutic, it is especially rewarding to know that what you are doing is relevant to solving what has been correctly described as humanity’s greatest challenge EVER!
In the state of New Hampshire, there are 11 emergency homeless shelters. In SFY 2005, they sheltered 6,249 people. Of these, 888 (14%) people pressed to shelters as being chronically homeless (a single adult having three episodes of homelessness in 4 years) and 1,585 (25%) came to the shelters with chronic mental health issues.
The first grant:
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT PROGRAM APPLICATION FORMS FOR FEASIBILITY STUDY GRANTS
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FINANCE AUTHORITY
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FINANCE AUTHORITY
MUNICIPALITY: GRAFTON COUNTY COMMISSIONERS on behalf of TRI-COUNTY CAP (COMMUNITY ACTION Program) Homeless Programs
STREET/P.O. BOX: P.O. Box 12, Lebanon NH ZIP: 03766
CONTACT PERSON: Joie Finley Morris PHONE# 603-443-6150
AMOUNT REQUESTED $12,000 (awarded to Grafton County Summer of 2007)
I. Project Description
In the space provided below the applicant shall write a project description which addresses the following items:
1. What is the proposed use of funds?
Tri-County CAP proposes to use the grant funding to study the feasibility of creating a “Green Haven” in Grafton County, New Hampshire to address one of the most pressing issues of the health care system, that of chronic homelessness. The Study would include a review of similar programs, identification of potential sites and identification of funding sources for construction and operation as well as developing a comprehensive plan to identify measurable outcomes. The concept of providing both transitional and permanent “green” affordable housing on a rural (farm) facility which provides job training through rural/cottage industry, farming, animal husbandry along with on-site supportive services is unique and combines a number of “hot” initiatives.
“Over the last few years a body of research has been developed that tells us that those experiencing chronic homelessness are a finite group representing only 10% of the homeless population. They, however, consume over 50% of all emergency homeless services and ricochet around the acute side of very expensive health care systems. As a result, they are some of the most expensive people in social service systems.” United States Interagency on Homelessness Executive Director Philip Mangano http://www.ich.gov/
A Green Haven is essentially a Safe-Haven constructed to green building standards and is a compound situation for people who have been labeled ‘hard to shelter’ and for whom the services currently provided in the nation’s health care system are not meeting their needs. Clients include people with chronic mental health issues, substance use disorders, etc. These persons are not always ‘street homeless’ in the urban sense but tend to be the 10% of the homeless for whom safe housing is thwarted by the nature of their disability, which disrupts their judgment, motivation, and social skills. Homelessness is a by-product of their disability. Efforts to alter the repeated use of costly hospital-based psychiatric services and the under-use of community mental health services by some homeless adults have yielded few successes. In many cases, for this under-served population, living within society as a whole with the support of existing programs simply does not work and yet their needs would not define them as persons that would require them to be institutionalized. The results of a survey of this fringe population in San Francisco found that the “psychiatric and social services currently offered by community mental health agencies were considered very low-priority; instead the respondents often blamed their inability to avoid readmissions on their lack of basic resources for survival.” (1) These basic survival skills must be learned or re-learned in a safe-haven which provides safe housing, job training and supportive services to be in one place and which puts a “low-demand” on the clients. Survey of the Problems and Needs of Homeless Consumers of Acute Psychiatric Services. F. L. Jessica Ball M.P.H., Ph.D.1 and Barbara E. Havassy Ph.D.2
The “Safe-Haven Concept is not new. In 1992, amendments to the McKinney Act created the Safe Haven program, a form of supportive housing for hard-to-reach people who are homeless with severe mental illness who are on the street and have been unable or unwilling to participate in supportive services. Subsequently a tool kit was developed to address these issues specifically and serve as a guide to help new programs avoid unnecessary administrative headaches. The kit includes eight chapters covering the key issues surrounding the creation of Safe Haven programs. They include: the Continuum of Care; planning, designing, siting, and financing Safe Haven housing; the challenge
and opportunity of NIMBY; outreach, engagement, and service delivery; crisis management; transitions from Safe Havens; program rules and expectations; and staffing issues. This tool kit will be very helpful to TriCounty CAP as we move ahead with this project. National Resource Center on Homelessness and Mental Illness, Policy Research Associates, Inc
A low demand residence can offer a safe housing environment which tolerates a wide range of behavior. The proposed program model provides essential services in a non-threatening manner which will eventually lead to the engagement of the client in an individualized program of psychosocial rehabilitation. Provision of services on-site affords a higher degree of accessibility and availability than might otherwise be possible, and maximizes opportunities for engagement. Safe Havens serve as refuges for people who are homeless with severe mental illness who have been unable to access or participate in traditional housing or supportive services. Safe Havens provide for basic needs such as food, showers, clothing, and shelter. They give people who are homeless a chance to adjust to life off the streets and to transition to permanent housing. Safe Havens exist in a number of cities including Philadelphia, Seattle, WA; Lowell, MA. Chicago, IL; Honolulu, HI; New York, NY and Burlington, VT.
2. How is the low and moderate income national objective being met? All applications must meet this national objective of the program. There are four methods that can be used to reasonably assure that the application will satisfy this requirement. The State will determine if this has been met for feasibility studies by the likely impact of the proposed study if it were implemented. A low and moderate income beneficiary is defined as lower than eighty percent (80%) of the adjusted median income, by family size, for the applicant's county. An outline has been included in your packet which describes each of these methods. Please describe which method is being used.
3. What is the number of potential low and moderate income beneficiaries if the study was implemented? Please include rational for arriving at this number.
30 at any time of whom 10 may be permanent residents.
The current proposal includes 10 single occupancy cabins for permanent housing and 10 double occupancy cabins for safe haven. Other possible structures include a green House/Barn, Vista quarters, Office/Post office, Mess Hall/gathering space, Mediation space, Classroom
4. What is the percentage of all beneficiaries (L/M and Non L/M) that are low and moderate income if the study was implemented?
100% Low-moderate income.
5. Would there be a long term benefit to low and moderate income persons or households if the study was implemented?
Long term benefit is defined as the project will provide a benefit, primarily to low and moderate income persons or households, for a minimum of twenty (20) years. This can be achieved by establishing a mechanism for maintaining long term affordability for housing, through the nature of the improvements or long term lease agreements for public facility projects or by establishing a revolving loan fund with a reuse plan to benefit low and moderate income persons.
Yes, the resulting facility would remain low- moderate income for at least thirty years as HUD 202 funds and other potential sources with stricter requirements would be solicited.
6. What is the amount of matching funds firmly committed to this study? Firmly committed funds are those that are a binding pledge of cash, not including anticipated money, previously expended money or sweat equity.
Zero
7. Is this study innovative as compared to other CDBG projects that have been funded over the most recent two year period? See the list of previous grants on CDBG Web Page or call for listing.
YES .This study and the proposed project are innovative because for the first time (that we can find) the study proposes to address a critical need, homeless population in a rural setting, in units developed to meet green building techniques and, to provide on-site work through cottage industry/agriculture. The project strives to create a community in which residents can learn or re-learn how to function in society in a secure, low-demand, non-threatening atmosphere.
There is mounting evidence, that working with animals and with agriculture can help to rehabilitate those who have fallen to the fringes of society. Two examples would the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation of having prison inmates work with off-the track horses to prepare them for new lives and closer to home, the farm in New Hampshire run by and for Veterans who have been unable to rejoin society as we understand it. Recently this farm has received approval as an organic farm. This operation is a model for the proposed study.
8. What is the probability that this study will directly lead to an implementation project?
Very high providing that a location can be identified for the project.
9. Does the study target any particular group with special needs, homeless clientele or low income families with children? Special needs group is defined as those persons who are part of any group that includes but is not limited to, elderly, physically handicapped, persons with AIDS, persons with terminal illnesses, persons with mental illness, persons with development disabilities or persons with alcohol and\or drug abuse dependency and which require special services and\or housing.
Yes…. Homeless persons with mental illness and substance use disorders /dependency issues.
10. What is the need for this study? Are there any other sources of funding for this study? What is the need for an implementation project that would result from this grant?
Over the last few years a body of research has been developed that tells us that those experiencing chronic homelessness are a finite group representing only 10% of the homeless population. They, however, consume over 50% of all emergency homeless services and ricochet around the acute side of very expensive health care systems. As a result, they are some of the most expensive people in social service systems. This is the issue that the proposed project seeks to address.
No, there is no other source of funding to our knowledge.