CSH Initiatives and Products: Keeping Families Together

Christie Administration Assists Families Find Permanent Supportive Housing

Department of Children and Families and Department of Community Affairs Partner to Help

25 Families Break Cycle of Homelessness

TRENTON – Continuing the Christie Administration’s commitment to New Jersey’s most vulnerable families, the New Jersey Department of Children and Families (DCF) in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) is helping 25 families move into permanent supportive housing by expanding Keeping Families Together, a pilot housing program.

Keeping Families Together is a model of permanent supportive housing for child welfare involved families struggling with homelessness and other challenges.  DCF established the program for 10 families in Essex County in July 2014, later expanding it to another 8 families in Monmouth and Passaic counties.

The latest expansion into Atlantic and Gloucester counties more the doubles the number of New Jersey families benefitting from Keeping Families Together.

“Family homelessness is devastating to children,” said DCF Commissioner Allison Blake.  “Its impact reverberates into future generations, creating continued despair and hopelessness and straining government resources.  But today, we’re moving to break the cycle for 25 families seeking better futures for their children.”

Keeping Families Together provides families access to supportive services, including case planning and evidence-based and trauma-informed coordinated services to support each family’s unique needs.

The 25 families, which will begin moving to their new homes before the end of the year, will receive Section 8 housing vouchers from the DCA.  The vouchers are essential to helping these families find an affordable and safe place to live.  DCA committed 25 15-year Project-Based Section 8 housing vouchers to the program.

“The DCA is pleased to provide the additional vouchers that will allow South Jersey families to participate in the Keeping Families Together program,” said DCA Commissioner Charles A. Richman. “Integrating social, health and case management services with housing, provides the stability needed to keep the family together.”

The initial Keeping Families Together pilot showed promise improving child well-being and decreasing child welfare involvement in New York City, according to Metis Associates. *

DCF joined with the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) to host DCF’s Keeping Families Together Statewide Convening in New Brunswick today.  The event brought together stakeholders throughout the state and included Housing First training, pilot site presentations, and peer-to-peer discussion and knowledge exchanges.

DCA provides administrative guidance, financial support and technical assistance to local governments, community development organizations, businesses and individuals to improve the quality of life in New Jersey. The Department offers a wide range of programs and services that respond to issues of public concern including fire and building safety, housing production, community planning and development, and local government management and finance.

DCF is dedicated to ensuring a better today and an even greater tomorrow for every individual the department serves. In partnership with New Jersey’s communities, DCF ensures the safety, well-being, and success of New Jersey’s children and families.  DCF funds and directly provides services and support to over 100,000 women, children, and families each month.

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*CSH is pleased to assist more communities using supportive housing as a solution for families involved in the child welfare system.  According to the extensive evaluation conducted by Metis Associates, the initial CSH Keeping Families Together pilot funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation achieved the following outcomes:

• During the evaluation period, close to 90% of the families stayed out of emergency shelter and remained stably housed in supportive housing
• Families experienced a decrease in child welfare system involvement with fewer incidences of repeat maltreatment while living in supportive housing
• School-age children within the families demonstrated steady average increases in school attendance
• Participating families indicated supportive housing had a positive effect on their ability to maintain relationships with others and to rebuild their support systems

Generous funding from Casey Family Programs supports CSH and our efforts related to the Keeping Families Together initiative in New Jersey.

 

CSH is leading efforts to improve H.R. 3700, a bill before the U.S. Congress that would make many important changes to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) core rental assistance programs. The proposed legislation includes many provisions that would increase the efficiency and effectiveness of critical rental assistance programs serving extremely low-income households.

Read CSH Federal Policy Director Hilary Swab Gawrilow’s blog about her testimony on H.R. 3700.

The proposal includes changes to the Family Unification Program (FUP) that would make more impactful the housing resources available to young adults who have been involved with foster care. Current statute imposes limitations on vouchers targeting youth who have left foster care. Those impediments can make it difficult for Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) to administer the voucher effectively so that young adults find quality, affordable housing and also the time they may need to engage in meaningful services programming to achieve independent living and long-term housing stability.

CSH is focused on modifications to Section 110 of H.R. 3700 in order to improve Youth- FUP voucher assistance. Specifically, we are urging language:

• Extending the age eligibility for FUP vouchers that serve young adults leaving care from 21 to 24;
• Increasing the time period for housing assistance for youth receiving the FUP voucher from 18 to 36 months;
• Allowing FUP voucher assistance to begin 90 days prior to a young adult leaving foster care (either through emancipation process or aging out), and incorporate the assistance into young adults’ transition plan to reduce lapses in housing;
• Including language requiring federal agencies to issue joint guidance to both PHAs and PWCAs (public child welfare agencies) on how to improve the referral process for the FUP voucher and identify eligible recipients of FUP, align program goals, and reduce lapses in housing for young persons who have been involved in foster care; and
• Allowing Public Housing Authorities to project-base Family Unification vouchers.

On October 21, 2015, CSH Federal Policy Director Hilary Swab Gawrilow testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, on Section 110 of H.R. 3700 and urged Members of Congress to incorporate the above-listed changes suggested by CSH.

Hilary’s testimony in full.

 

This month, The Connection, Inc., a Connecticut-based human service and community development agency, invited CSH, the New Jersey Department of Children and Families (DCF), and other New Jersey service providers for a site visit to learn about Connecticut’s experience in replicating Keeping Families Together (KFT), a CSH-inspired supportive housing intervention for families at risk of recurring involvement in the child welfare system.

The Connection provided an overview of its Supportive Housing for Families and  Intensive Supportive Housing for Families programs to their counterparts in New Jersey.

The visit also included a panel of tenants from both programs discussing their personal stories.

One mother of four described how she struggled through the trauma of domestic violence and described her experience in supportive housing as more than living in an apartment – she said for the first time in her life, she felt she was safe and at home. She conveyed how supportive housing case management supports focused on her entire family when her sixteen-year-old daughter began contemplating dropping out of high school. The mother reached out to her supportive housing case manager and a vocational specialist at The Connection for help. Working with mom and daughter, the manager and specialist collectively demonstrated the long-term and economic advantages of the young girl staying in school, and convinced her to pursue her education. The story is a powerful example of how effective child-welfare practices, when embedded in supportive housing, empower families to be key partners in case-related planning and decision-making in a positive, trusting environment.

Another young mother told how she and her three-year old daughter became homeless and involved in the child welfare system after a traumatic life event put them on the streets. Before The Connection’s housing intervention, the young family was living in a doubled-up situation, and the mother shared how “not living in her own place really affected her [daughter].” Now permanently housed in supportive housing, the three-year old just celebrated her birthday in her own home, and the mother is now able to focus attention on seeking therapy to heal from past trauma.

Deb DeSantis, the CEO of CSH, said she was “thrilled with the conversation among the host and visitors, and the opportunity to have our partners learn from each other. I appreciated the chance to hear from the families who were kind enough to share their stories. It was a great.”

On the day of the Connecticut site visit, the New Jersey DCF issued an RFP for providers pursuing KFT in the southern part of the state, offering funding up to $640,000 and a maximum of 25 Project-Based State Rental Assistance Program Vouchers to successful applicants. CSH will serve as a broker and intermediary in New Jersey’s KFT replication efforts thanks to the generous support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Find out more about New Jersey’s RFP for KFT.

To learn more about CSH’s work around our most vulnerable families with children, click here.

Request for Proposals for Keeping Families Together – Pilot Program in Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester and/or Salem County     

Please visit http://www.nj.gov/dcf/providers/notices/ for information about this announcement.

 

CSH recently facilitated an in-depth sharing of knowledge and experiences among several family-focused organizations pursuing the “Keeping Families Together” model of supportive housing in the Southeastern United States.

On March 11 and 12, a group of leaders from the Mecklenburg County (North Carolina) Community Support Services and Department of Social Services, Salvation Army Center of Hope, Charlotte (NC) Housing Authority, United Way of Central Carolinas and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC) Schools traveled to Broward County, Florida, to meet with the HEART Alliance for Sustainable Families.  HEART is one of the five sites CSH advises through the federal ACF Partnerships to Demonstrate the Effectiveness of Supportive Housing for Families with Child Welfare Involvement and the Child Welfare and Supportive Housing Resource Center. Mecklenburg County (NC) is actively engaged with CSH through its Frequent User Systems Engagement (FUSE) initiative, called MeckFUSE, which aims to use supportive housing to break the cycle of homelessness and incarceration.

The groups from North Carolina were intent on learning how HEART identified and is using federal Family Unification Program and Housing Choice rental assistance vouchers to meet the needs of child welfare-involved families through supportive housing. The delegation also heard from the Broward County Housing Authority about the Authority’s approach to partnering with support services, and the barriers and opportunities for setting housing assistance voucher preferences for complex families who are homeless and involved in the child welfare systems. Another topic of interest centered on the difficulties and successes of using the housing first philosophy when working with families.

Presentations were given by key individuals from each agency within the HEART Alliance, and state and national issues were covered by staff from Casey Family Programs and the Florida Department of Children and Families, Office of Child Welfare. One of the most impactful moments occurred when a young woman who is now thriving in her own supportive housing apartment with her children, who are safe and flourishing with their mother, spoke about her relationships with the HEART case managers, what she has learned about creating family stability and her goals for the future.

Various agencies involved in HUD Continuum of Care, coordinated access and front door services, also met with the groups, which toured a homeless shelter and learned about the coordination between the 211 hotline, outreach workers, and a highly organized system of churches providing emergency shelter.

The peer-to-peer resulted in an increased understanding of the Keeping Families Together model, the specific approaches that HEART Alliance is taking and what they have learned so far, and the expansion of information-sharing networks.

One participant from North Carolina best summed up the main benefit of peer-to-peer interactions by noting the “visit allowed us to envision how a similar project will work in our community. We had the opportunity to learn from the experiences HEART had encountered and begin to develop strategies to best create a sustainable project locally.”

After years of bouncing between homeless shelters and substance abuse treatment programs, when Annemarie Wallace and her family moved into permanent supportive housing at Palladia’s Fox Point, she thought “everything happens for a reason. We got out of one place to so we could get into someplace better. Maybe this is for me.” Last night’s MetroFocus shared the story of how supportive housing made it possible for Annemarie’s family to thrive. MetroFocus also visited Common Ground’s Prince George, a 416 unit supportive housing development for low-income and formerly homeless adults and persons with HIV/AIDS.

Palladia is one of CSH’s Keeping Families Together Pilot providers, combining affordable housing with customized case management services. The pilot served 29 families which all had significant, sometimes intergenerational, histories of child welfare involvement, substance abuse or mental illness, interpersonal violence and trauma and homelessness. Child welfare involvement among Keeping Families Together families declined significantly during the pilot and most families had no new abuse or neglect cases after moving to supportive housing. Six children were reunited with their families from foster care—and were still with them when the pilot ended. Average school attendance improved steadily among Keeping Families Together school children.

CSH is excited that Mayor Bill de Blasio has outlined a commitment to to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing over the next 10 years, including new supportive housing in the Housing New York plan.

Read More: Campaign 4 NY/NY Housing

CSH sponsored a training session on the Keeping Families Together (KFT) Initiative in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota on June 13.  This initiative uses supportive housing to offer stability to families with children who are risk of recurring involvement in the child welfare system. This all-day event that included training for supportive housing providers and child welfare workers, brought together staff from two systems to enhance coordination on behalf of vulnerable families.

Leah Rhea, CSH Senior Program Manager, gave a lunch time address around the work of CSH’s Partnerships to Demonstrate the Effectiveness of Supportive Housing for Families with Child Welfare Involvement. This included an overview of the five core components of Keeping Families Together programs:  supportive housing, targeting, multi-system collaboration, clinical  coaching and supervision and evaluation. Leah also shared a video about this initiative with an overview of the Keeping Families Together pilot, along with a first hand account from a 13 year-old girl named Felicia and her dad Ronald.

Click here to learn more about Keeping Families Together.

In any given conversation about funding services for the poor, it is not unusual to hear, “There are simply not enough resources to serve all of the people who need help.”   Since the recession, funding to meet even the most basic needs of families is rapidly vanishing.  We are told, at all levels of social service, public and private, that it is incumbent upon us to use the funding we have more effectively and efficiently. We are told that the way to do this is to be more innovative, creative, to collaborate.  However, most public funding streams are rigid and are not conducive to these ideas.

However, at the close of 2013, thirty-eight families are on their way to becoming stably housed because our massive public child welfare system, overseen by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), decided to do things a little differently. ACYF knew they could not do it alone, so they recruited the support of four philanthropic partners, Robert Wood Johnson, Annie E. Casey, Edna McConnell Clark and Casey Family Programs to help them create the flexibility and support necessary to test a new service paradigm in child welfare—supportive housing.

Five grantees, representing sixty-five + public and private partnerships nation-wide, are implementing family supportive housing, most, for the for the first time. Behavioral health, public housing, family court, local child welfare agencies, homeless shelters and others, are working across their systems, sharing resources and expertise with the goal of providing supportive housing to nearly 500 of our most vulnerable children and families by 2017. CSH along with the Center for the Study of Social Policy have teamed up to provide technical assistance to the grantees through the Child Welfare and Supportive Housing Resource Center.

We believe this initiative, prompted by the promising results of our Keeping Families Together pilot, is a great example of how an innovative idea, fearless leadership and intentional partnership can spur investment in more efficient and effective services for the most fragile families. In 2014, we look forward to more families becoming and staying housed under this initiative. We look forward to better outcomes for families next year and a better future for their children in the years that follow.

As 2013 closes, we are grateful to our public and private partners for their leadership and for the many inventive service providers across the country willing and able to stretch the limits of their work to achieve better results for kids and families.

CSH is proud to be announcing a new effort to provide support to the most vulnerable families in communities throughout the county, The Child Welfare and Supportive Housing Resource Center. The resource center is a joint effort of CSH and the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP), that will provide technical assistance, facilitate information-sharing and assist in capacity-building for grantees of the federal Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) Partnerships to Demonstrate the Effectiveness of Supportive Housing for Families with Child Welfare initiative.

We have learned through Keeping Families Together, our pilot demonstration in New York City, that supportive housing offers stability and essential support to families with children who are at risk of recurring involvement in the child welfare system and that present the highest cost to society. Keeping Families Together showed real promise in reducing expenses and reuniting children with their families in a safe, stable environment.

Like Keeping Families Together, the five grantees of this federal demonstration will test whether or not supportive housing can prevent and end homelessness and foster care placement among families with complex challenges like substance abuse and mental health issues. This unprecedented investment in supportive housing by the child welfare system reflects the growing recognition that supportive housing is a promising solution to some of our most costly and tragic social  problems. Unnecessary foster care placement is often detrimental to the health and well-being of children and can often lead to homelessness in adulthood.

At CSH we are energized by this new effort and look forward to providing best practices and capacity building to these five grantees who are working to improve overall child and family well-being across the country. During April, which is Child Abuse Awareness Month, we are especially encouraged and excited about The Child Welfare and Supportive Housing Resource Center as it is a perfect demonstration of our mission to use supportive housing as a way to improve lives for our most vulnerable families and individuals.

Read the entire press release here

 

Read Commissioner Bryan Samuels take on keeping children safe

 

CSH is proud to release our new guide to creating supportive housing for child welfare-involved families. Created with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the guide is based on lessons learned from our Keeping Families Together pilot and related efforts to help communities knit together local, state and federal resources around these fragile families. Use the guidebook as a tool to help you support the spread of supportive housing models to stabilize the highest-risk families. 

Download the keeping families together guidebook