Category Archives: Maine CoC

Maine CoC, News

MCOC Meeting 1/17/19

The Maine Continuum of Care will be meeting on Thursday, January 17, 2019 from 1:00 to 3:00. Please see the agenda for details including teleconferencing locations and a call-in number.  Other items to be discussed at the meeting are also attached, below.

MCOC will be accepting nominations for vacant MCOC Board of Directors positions at this meeting and forwarding their recommendations to the Board (please see my earlier post on this process for more details).

Please note that MCOC will NOT be meeting in February!

MCOC-Agenda-1-17-19

DRAFT 12-20-18 MCOC Minutes

State and Federal Legislation Update 1.2.19

CES AAR Final Report

CoC meeting HMIS info

HMIS Agency Participation Agreement – 11-28-2018

Maine HMIS Authorization to Disclose Information Form 11-28-2018

Request for MCoC Letter of Support for SSVF FY19

 

 

Maine CoC, Maine Homeless Council

SHC Retreat

The Statewide Homeless Council will be on a planning retreat for January 8th.  The retreat is for voting members only – if you are a voting member of the Statewide Homeless Council, information regarding the details and location of this retreat will be emailed to you directly. There will NOT be a regular meeting in Augusta this month, so for those who regulalry attend as guests, please enjoy this ‘extra’ day!

Maine CoC, Maine Homeless Council, News

Maine Point-In-Time Count Information

This is a reminder that the annual Point-in-Time count is Tuesday, January 22, 2019. Below you will find information for HMIS participating agencies, agencies that do not participate in HMIS, and for Outreach efforts conducting unsheltered counts.

For HMIS Participating Agencies

All data in the HMIS for Emergency Shelter, Transitional Housing and Safe Haven projects need to be reviewed to ensure that it reflects what is true on the night of January 22nd. You are required to send a signed Certification to MaineHousing by February 13, 2019. Please use the link below to review video’s on the PIT and how to run your reports.

https://mainehmis.org/training

2019 PIT Sheltered and Youth Addendum for Providers

2019 PIT Sheltered Report in HMIS

2019 Youth Addendum

In addition to your PIT Count, remember that a Youth Addendum survey needs to be completed and returned to MaineHousing by February 13th for all unaccompanied youth under the age of 25.

Via Mail to:   MaineHousing

Attn: Amanda Castner

353 Water Street

Augusta, ME 04330

2019 Housing Inventory Count Announcement 

As part of the annual Housing Inventory Count process, we ask our providers to review, verify, and update your information for each of your projects.  This includes Emergency Shelters, Transitional Housing, Safe Haven, and Permanent Housing, which includes Permanent Supportive Housing and Rapid Re-Housing projects. The HIC form has changed slightly from last year. There is a guidance document that addresses how to fill in each section of the form. This should be reviewed before submitting your certification to MaineHousing by February 13th.

  • Login to ServicePoint
  • Connect to ART
  • Public Folder
  • Housing Inventory

2019 Housing Inventory Certification Report Guide.pdf

2019 Maine Homeless Housing Inventory Certification Form

For non-HMIS Agencies and Outreach

Below you will find links to the 2019 PIT Unsheltered, Non-HMIS Participating and Youth Count video along with a link to any survey’s you will need.  The training will cover general information on the Unsheltered Street Count portion of the Point-in-Time and the data collection process for the 2019 Unsheltered Count. The video is for outreach groups, volunteers and non-HMIS participants who will be assisting in the 2019 PIT count.  Please remember that when filling out the surveys, keep all households together and complete a youth addendum survey for all unaccompanied youth under the age of 25.

https://mainehmis.org/training

https://mainehmis.org/documents

For those needing surveys printed off for them ahead of time and mailed, please send me an email request no later than January 14, 2019.

If you have any questions or need support, please contact me by phone or email.

Thank you,

Amanda Castner

HMIS Application Specialist

MaineHousing

353 Water Street

Augusta, ME 04330

207-624-5709

Maine Relay 711

www.mainehousing.org

Maine CoC, News

Call for Nominations for MCOC Board of Directors

The Maine Continuum of Care is seeking nominations to fill several vacant Board of Director seats. While all nominations are welcome and will receive equal consideration, in an effort to maintain balanced representation both in terms of geography and populations served, the Board is hoping to fill some of these vacancies with providers who serve Youth, Families, Veterans, and with at least two of the new members serving the greater Portland area.

Nominations will be accepted at the MCOC meeting on January 17th, 2019 and forwarded to the Board for their consideration at their February meeting. Please confirm with anyone you wish to nominate (and you may nominate yourself) that they are willing and able to devote the time and effort required to fulfill this role.

For more information, please contact one of the MCOC Chairs, (Vickey, Awa or Veronica) or Scott at stibbitts @ MaineHousing.org

 

Maine CoC

MCOC: Project Monitoring Information

This information is being provided for all Projects that are receiving funding through the Maine Continuum of Care.

Dear MCOC Project,

This is a reminder that all monitoring materials for your project(s) must be submitted to the MCOC Project Monitoring Committee within 30 days of submitting your annual performance report (APR) in Sage.  Thirty Days ends at midnight on the 30th day. Non-compliance in meeting the 30-day deadline will lead to your project losing points for being late.  Since the HMIS letter grade report is under review, projects are not required to submit that document at this time.

The following materials are required for monitoring:

  1. A completed monitoring form (attached below)
  2. A copy of the project’s Sage APR (that was not submitted for the 2018 NOFA)
  3. A copy of the project’s HMIS COC-APR – from ServicePoint
  4. A copy of your Esnaps project application corresponding to the APR submitted for monitoring

Please send your monitoring materials to:

Michael Shaughnessy  gro.g1555634411nisuo1555634411henia1555634411m@yss1555634411enhgu1555634411ahsm1555634411 (mshaughnessy (at) mainehousing.org)

Thank you.

MCOC Monitoring Form Finalized 11.16

Maine CoC, News

MCOC: After Action Review (AAR) for Coordinated Entry

During the MCOC Meeting tomorrow, Leah will be conducting an abbreviated version of the After Action Review (AAR) that was part of our recent ESHAP Navigator Training. The purpose of the AAR is to evaluate and learn from feedback provided by those who have direct experience with a project, process or event. The information and insights from the Navigator AAR were reviewed by the CoC Board, and they asked that Leah bring this exercise to the full MCOC.

Ideally, an AAR is a lively and interactive discussion.  However, given the large number of people who call-in to our meetings, that format is not practical. In order to collect information from as many MCOC members as possible, Leah has created a Survey Monkey version of the AAR questions. Please join the MCOC meeting tomorrow to hear more details, then copy and paste this link into your internet browser search bar to provide your feedback: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BBK8Y3N

The AAR consists of 4 Questions:

Question 1: What was supposed to happen in Coordinated Entry?

Question 2: What actually happened?

Question 3: Why was there a difference (between the plan and the actual result)?

Question 4: What will we do next time (the same, and differently)?

Maine CoC

Reminder: MCOC 12-20-18

This is a reminder that the Maine Continuum of Care will be meeting on Thursday, December 20th, 2018. Please see the Agenda for details, including Video Conferencing locations and a call in number for those not able to attend at one of these locations.

Please Note: the Portland Public Library location will not be available for this meeting! The Portland location for this month will be Community Housing of Maine (CHOM), One City Center, 4th Floor.

MCOC-Agenda-12-20-18

DRAFT 11-15-18 MCOC Minutes

State and Federal Legislation Update 12.5.18

2019 Meeting Dates for SHC, MCOC, BOD & RHCs

 

Invitation from HUD – CE TA Community of Practice 11-15-18

Maine CoC

Reminder: Vote Vote Vote!

The Maine Continuum of Care is electing a new Tri-Chair. There are two excellent candidates vying for the position: Veronica Ross, of The Opportunity Alliance, and William (Bill) Higgins, of Homeless Voices for Justice.  A brief statement from each appeared in a previous post on November 16th.

There are currently 36 agencies eligible to Vote in MCOC. Please see the list below to see if your agency is one of them. So far, only 15 (those in red font) have voted.  If your agency is in black font, you can still cast a vote. There can be only one vote per agency, so make sure you confer with your co-workers!

Please email your vote to Awa, Vickey and Scott before December 10th so we can announce the winner at the next MCOC meeting. This website scrambles email addresses so if you need them, contact Scott at stibbitts at mainehousing. org and I will send you the info.

Bangor Area Homeless Shelter
Bread of  Life Ministries
Catholic Charities
CHOM
City of Bangor
City of Portland
Community Health & Counseling Services
DHHS
Emmaus Shelter
ESM
Fair Tide
Families and Children Together (FACT)
Family Violence Project
HOME, Inc.
Homeless Voices for Justice
Hope and Justice Project
Kennebec Behavioral Health
Knox County Homeless Coalition
MaineHousing
Mid Maine Homeless Shelter
New Beginnings
Next Step
OHI
Partners for Peace
PCHC
Preble Street
RCAM
Safe Voices
Shalom House
Tedford Housing
The Opportunity Alliance
Through These Doors
 Veteran’s Inc
Volunteers of America
York County Shelter Programs, Inc.
Youth Advisory Board
Maine CoC, Maine Homeless Council, News

CE Triage and Diversion “Pause”

Dear Coordinated Entry Participant,

On behalf of the CE Subcommittee, after much deliberation and listening to CES partners, the CoC Board has approved a “pause” in the Triage and Diversion portion of Coordinated Entry. This pause will provide time to build a better system coupling what we learned with this experience with emerging best practices.

What the pause means:

  • CE partners are not required to complete or enter into HMIS any Triage and Diversion In other words, what is commonly misidentified as “Coordinated Entry,” the initial Triage and Diversion entry assessment (copy attached) does not have to be completed.

What to do during the pause:

  • Continue to facilitate soft landings for persons entering the homeless response system.  Help refer to the best available resource and guide people seeking shelter to community resources with warm handoffs
  • Bring your voice and participate in CoC meetings big and small.

Please accept this as official notice to pause the Triage and Diversion portion of Coordinated Entry.

Thank you for your consideration,

  • The Coordinated Entry Subcommittee

Vickey Rand, Josh D’Alessio, Derek Morin, Erin Kelley, Leah Bruns, Mary Wade, Melody Fitch, Rachel Boyce, Scott Tibbitts, Veronica Ross, and Virginia Dill

CE-Triage-and-Diversion-Assessment-4.18.18

Joshua B. D’Alessio, MHA LADC
Manager of Homeless Initiatives
WISH Program Manager

Hope House Health & Living Center

179 – 181 Corporate Drive, Bangor, ME 04401
Pronouns: he|him|his
C. 207/944.9838 ~ O. 217.6713 #1144