Homeless Crisis Line in 2019

Published: 04 January 2019

2018 brought pivotal changes to how people access homeless services in Greater Richmond. At the beginning of the calendar year, our community shifted to a phone-based access point, the Housing Crisis Line. By the third quarter of last year, the Housing Crisis Line averaged over 10,000 calls per quarter. It was clear that the volume of this program was too large for any single agency. In response to this need, our community came together to deliver a multi-agency approach to our region’s primary homeless services access point. The rebranded Homeless Crisis Line (HCL) launched in late September with four agencies providing six HCL staff members.

Five of the HCL positions are Diversion Specialists. These are the tireless staff members on the other end of the line when someone facing a housing crisis calls for help. Because Homeward houses the HCL in our offices, we had the opportunity to speak with several Diversion Specialists this week to gain insight into how they approach their jobs and what it means to them to assist people in crisis.

The Diversion Specialists shared how they understand that many of the clients lack access to “natural support [networks] to help them overcome the crises they face.” The emerging best practice of Diversion in homeless services works to solve this very problem. At a basic level, Diversion is a tool to help people experiencing a housing crisis problem-solve and avoid entering into homelessness.

The specialists at the HCL shared that they implement Diversion in a number of ways. At times, it is mediating family conflict so that a mother and her children don’t enter the shelter system. Other times, it is helping to identify and reestablish connections to a supportive friend or family member. Often it is offering temporary support by being a listening ear that helps a client talk through their crisis.

However, it is important to “know and set boundaries”, one specialist added. The focus is to help people get connected to resources and services, but also to empower them to take actionable steps towards overcoming their crisis.

Each Diversion Specialist spoke of the rewarding sense of accomplishment “when someone in crisis gets connected to the services they need.” Sometimes that is diverting people from homelessness. Other times that reward comes by seeing that someone they spoke with got off the street and into emergency shelter. The specialists also admitted that their job stretches and reveals latent assumptions about people experiencing homelessness in even seasoned homeless service professionals. This requires patiently treating each caller with respect and dignity, even when the line receives over 4,000 calls a month.

In 2018, the HCL served 6,351 unique people and 14,097 entries were made in our network’s client database. At this volume of service, perhaps the most important insight is that the HCL staff members and partnering agencies still look optimistically into the New Year as an opportunity build on and consolidate the changes made to homeless services in 2018.

The Homeless Crisis Line (HCL) is a phone-based access point for people who are experiencing homelessness or who will lose housing within three days. The phone line is open Monday-Friday 8am-6pm. The partnering agencies of the HCL are Area Congregations Together for Service (ACTS), HomeAgain, Homeward, and Housing Families First.  HCL staff includes five Diversion Specialists, Ms. Gonzalez (ACTS), Destiny Hunter (Housing Families First), Tyree Lewis (Housing Families First), Dawn Oliveri (ACTS), Avis Winston (Home Again) and HCL Coordinator, Terri Lawson (Homeward).

Eviction Data From July PIT Count

Published: 28 September 2018

Twice a year, Homeward leads a Point-in-Time count. This one-day census give us the opportunity to hear from our neighbors experiencing homelessness so that our community can build the resources that can help them overcome their crisis.

In the survey this July, we surveyed 389 adults experiencing homelessness. We asked them what the primary cause of their homelessness was, and 34 people (8.7%) indicated that the reason was eviction. (The most common reasons people gave were unemployment (23.7%), family/relationship breakdown (20.6%), cost of housing (9.8%), drug/alcohol abuse (9.3%), and then eviction (8.7%)).

We asked the following three questions related to evictions:

In the past three years, have you been kicked out or evicted by your landlord?

104 (26.7%) people indicated that they had been kicked out or evicted in the past three years. Clients who said that they hadn’t are not included in the statistics below.

Where did you live after being kicked out or evicted by your landlord?

Over half of clients indicated that they were homeless after being kicked out or evicted. The most common answer provided was an unsheltered location (40.4% of those who said they had been kicked out/evicted in the previous question), followed by family and friends (26.0%), a hotel/motel (14.4%), shelter (12.5%), their own housing (4.8%), and an institution (1.9%).

Before you were kicked out or evicted, did you get a legal notice saying that you needed to leave the place you lived by a certain date and time?

Of those who said they had been kicked out or eviction, a majority (64.4%) indicated that they had received a legal notice specifying a date/time they needed to leave.

To learn more about evictions in Virginia and find out how you can help prevent them, visit https://www.reduceevictions.org/.

Data Leads the Way

Published: 26 October 2018

Homeward has long expressed the importance of data in the work of reducing and ending homelessness. Tracking data on homelessness helps us to understand the causes of homelessness, identify gaps in services, build strategic partnerships, and measure the performance of our network of care. Additionally, tracking data allows us to compare the outcome of our community’s network with that of networks across the state and nation.

Earlier this month, The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) released several interactive tools that help visualize data on homelessness in communities across the country.

With HUD’s tool USASpending, users can click on an interactive map to view a snapshot of any Continuum of Care’s (CoC) data from the 2017 Point-in-Time count. NAEH’s tool, State of Homelessness provides statewide data on the total number of people experiencing homelessness, as well as the rate of homelessness per 10,000 people.

A quick look at Virginia reveals that at 7.2 persons per 10,000, we have one of the lowest rates of homelessness in the nation. By adding a historical layering tool we see that homelessness in Virginia has been reduced by 38% since 2007. This should make each of us proud of the hard work done each day to end homelessness across the Commonwealth.

However, Homeward is committed to and focused on ending homelessness specifically in the Richmond region. NAEH’s tool has the capacity to break down state data into CoCs. When viewing data on the capital region, we see that the rate of homelessness is lower than the state average. At 6.2 persons experiencing homelessness per 10,000 people, the Richmond region has the lowest rate of homelessness of any major metropolitan area in Virginia. This rate is also lower than many smaller metro areas in the state.

This outcome is not arbitrary. For 20 years, Homeward has used data and collaboration to drive system-wide change in how our community solves the issue of homelessness. By hearing from people in crisis, coordinating service providers, and helping local programs remain competitive for federal and state dollars, Homeward has filled the role of lead agency in a data-informed, outcome-driven, collaborative network of homeless services.

We are grateful for our supporters and provider partners who have helped make such a meaningful impact in the work of getting people off the streets and into safe, stable housing. We look to a future where by applying best practices and aligning our resources, the Richmond region is one where homelessness is brief, rare, and one-time for anyone who experiences it.

Collaborative Disaster Response Planning for People Living Outdoors

Published: 13 September 2018

While it now seems that the bulk of the impact of Hurricane Florence will avoid our region, earlier this week our community was preparing for catastrophic weather. Part of this preparation involved a highly successful collaboration to connect our neighbors left completely exposed to the elements by a lack of housing with access to safe shelter during the storm.

Twice a year, Homeward leads the Point-in-Time (PIT) count, a one-day census of people experiencing homelessness in Greater Richmond. In July, data collected in the PIT count revealed that of the 577 people experiencing homelessness in our region, 185 people were unsheltered. Someone is considered unsheltered when they are sleeping on the streets, in an encampment, or in a place not meant for human habitation (e.g. a car or abandoned building).

The first step this week was to coordinate outreach workers to do welfare checks at locations where people were known to be living outdoors. In order to locate people living outdoors, the team relied on data from previous PIT counts and an online  outreach form that is open to the public. Next, a call was issued to emergency shelter providers to expand their capacity in preparation for Hurricane Florence. This call was answered by CARITAS, a local homeless service nonprofit. CARITAS opened 15 additional beds and expanded the length of time people could stay in some of their existing beds. Additionally, the City of Richmond opened two emergency shelters in response to the hurricane.

Lastly, we worked with partners across the region to communicate the efforts that were underway to get people connected to shelter. We heard from partners in law enforcement, at local congregations, as well as public offices that the coordinated deployment of outreach and communication helped workers make contact with dozens of people living outdoors. In fact, just this week there were 32 online requests for well-being checks submitted to our community’s coordinated outreach partners.

We are thankful for the hard work of our partners this week and every week. Because our community makes a collaborative effort to end homelessness throughout the year, we are able to mobilize a highly coordinated disaster response plan for our most vulnerable neighbors when the need arises.

Check out the below links to see media coverage on this week’s efforts:

https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/city-s-homeless-population-urged-to-seek-higher-ground/1437479724

https://ideastations.org/radio/news/richmond-ramps-homeless-outreach-ahead-hurricane

*Image:NPR