Erica Mulryan, director of the Ohio Balance of State Continuum of Care (COHHIO), which oversees the homeless system in 80 counties in the state, said during a Homelessness Task Force meeting in Springfield this week that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) administers “the largest federal response to homelessness,” being the Continuum of Care program and the Emergency Solutions Grants program.
According to HUD, the aim of the Continuum of Care program is to promote community commitment to ending homelessness, fund nonprofits and state and local governments to allow them to rehouse people experiencing homelessness, promote access to homelessness programs and “optimize self-sufficiency” in individuals experiencing homelessness. The Emergency Solutions Grants program helps people “quickly regain stability in permanent housing after experiencing a housing crisis and/or homelessness,” according to HUD’s website.
Mulryan said these programs play into the Continuum of Care and its responsibilities related to designing and carrying out coordinated entry systems.
These systems are required to have an access point where a person seeking assistance can reach out and a staff member can divert them out of the homelessness system if possible, or to emergency housing or shelter if this is not possible, Mulryan said.
“We find ourselves at a point where we’ve learned a lot, and there are some aspects of our approach to our coordinated entry system that could clearly benefit from a review,” Mulryan said.
Sheltered Inc., a Springfield nonprofit that addresses homelessness by providing temporary shelter and other services, serves this purpose locally. That means anyone experiencing homelessness and seeking shelter or other assistance goes through the organization first. Sheltered Inc. completes an intake form and either invites the person into a shelter or diverts them to another shelter or resource if they do not have space or if that person would be better served outside of the homelessness system.
Some members of community organizations in the coalition have expressed frustrations with this process, saying there have been several miscommunications and the intake system is not as efficient as it needs to be to mitigate the homelessness crisis the city is experiencing.
Ross Cunningham, federal programs manager with the city of Springfield, said there should be an answer as to next steps or where to go for people who call Sheltered Inc. to get an intake into the system.
“People aren’t communicating well together and sort of cooperatively sharing information, and some of that falls on one agency or two agencies, but I think it also falls on the community as a whole,” Cunningham said. “... The way it should work is that a person calls and they have some answer by the end of that conversation, whether it’s diversion or ‘We’re going to put you in a community queue and ... you can be referred to the different agencies that shelter people.’”
Mulryan said a full-time dedicated position at every access point would ensure there is staff available to guide people through the homelessness system. There is no dedicated funding through HUD for the current coordinated entry program, though, Mulryan said, so this is something nonprofits would have to fund or seek funding through other means.
Sheltered Inc. did not have a representative at the Homelessness Task Force meeting this week. The News-Sun left a message seeking comment on the intake issues.
According to the most recent emergency shelter occupancy report, there were 35 individuals on the waiting list for shelter as of last Thursday.
Agencies that provide shelter include Sheltered Inc., which operates a family shelter and a men’s shelter; Homefull, which operates the Executive Inn; and the Department of Job and Family Services, which is housing people at the Quality Inn on an emergency basis.
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