Entries by admin

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Getting Involved with the CoC Governance Process

On August 14, Mecklenburg County Community Support Services hosted a Continuum of Care (CoC) Governance Kick-Off Meeting.  This event shared important updates to the local CoC Governance process and provided opportunities for individuals and organizations to get involved in the establishment of a new CoC Governance Charter for the community. Mecklenburg County and the City of Charlotte are partnering to shift the management of the Continuum of Care (CoC) from the City to the County.  This change is being made as part of a comprehensive response to the community need for permanent, affordable housing. (To read more about the transition process, read last week’s blog post.) This blog post provides a recap of the Kick-Off Event and highlights ways to get involved in the CoC Governance process.

August 16, 2019 by

CoC Community Transition Update

Mecklenburg County and the City of Charlotte are collaborating strategically in new and different ways as part of a comprehensive response to continued community needs around permanent, affordable housing.  One of these strategies is a partnership to transition the management of the Continuum of Care (CoC) from the City to Mecklenburg County. This blog post provides an update on this important work and what it means for the community.

August 8, 2019 by

New Data Quality Page Released

Last week, the Building Bridges blog post described the community focus on and impact of HMIS data quality in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. As part of the work to improve local housing and homelessness data quality, Community Support Services created the HMIS Data Quality page on the Housing & Homelessness Dashboard. This post is dedicated to the new HMIS Data Quality page launched today, Friday August 2nd. The page covers date quality as well as completeness for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Continuum of Care (CoC). In addition, the post shares how this data can be employed and some potential impacts for Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

August 1, 2019 by

July 2019 By-Name List & Coordinated Entry Data Update

Community Support Services partners with homeless service agencies in Charlotte-Mecklenburg to enter, collect, analyze and report data on housing and homelessness in the community. This June blog post describes the release of a new Housing Data Snapshot page, which provides regular reporting on three critical data points: the One Number, “By-Name” List Movement, and Coordinated Entry. Starting with this blog post, as new data is added to the Housing Data Snapshot, we will highlight changes and provide in-depth analysis to describe what these changes mean for Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

July 18, 2019 by

New Program in Mecklenburg County: Keeping Families Together

Mecklenburg County recently allocated $1M to Community Support Services to replicate the MeckFUSE model in a new program with up to 50 families participating.   Called Keeping Families Together (KFT), this program is a model of permanent supportive housing.  Designed in partnership with Corporation for Supportive Housing, KFT is specifically for a subset of child welfare-involved families who typically present with an array of co-occurring challenges.   To date, KFT has proven to be a promising practice in improving child wellbeing and decreasing child welfare involvement among the most vulnerable families. This blog post provides an overview of the program and its potential impact in Mecklenburg County.

July 11, 2019 by

Know our Data to Use Our Data: Data Quality in our Community

In 2014, Mecklenburg County Community Support Services stepped up to fill a gap in the community by investing in two positions dedicated to housing and homelessness data. These positions are collectively focused on ensuring that we collect quality, useful and timely data and that we are connecting data to the community so that it can be used to inform funding, programs and policy. This post is the first in a series that takes a deep dive into data quality: specifically, looking at data in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) database. Data quality, which includes examining completeness and consistency, rarely takes center stage but it is essential to understanding the scope and nature of problems and identifying solutions.

July 10, 2019 by

New Local Racial Equity Analysis Tool on Dashboard

In January 2019, the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) released a Continuum of Care (CoC) Racial Equity Analysis Tool to help communities across the United States understand who is accessing local CoC systems and what outcomes are being achieved. Mecklenburg County Community Support Services, in partnership with UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, adapted the tool for use by the Mecklenburg CoC.  The tool was released today, Thursday, June 20th, via this link on the Housing & Homelessness Dashboard. This blog post provides an overview of the new tool and how our community can use it to promote equity and inclusion in the provision of housing and homelessness services.

June 19, 2019 by

Diversion & Youth Homelessness

The Charlotte Mecklenburg Emergency Shelter System: Assessment of Capacity and Utilization Report released in April 2019 recommends solutions to optimize the emergency shelter system. One of the suggested solutions is to employ diversion resources across the homeless services system. Diversion is a cost-effective way to serve the immediate needs of homeless individuals and families, maximizing emergency shelter capacity and targeting shelter beds and resources to individuals and families who need it the most. Diversion, when it’s implemented effectively, helps households seeking shelter to find a safe alternative.  Diversion assistance includes transportation to stay with a family member as well as financial assistance to find other temporary housing solutions. Like other housing interventions, diversion with youth must be tailored to meet the needs of youth experiencing homelessness. This blog post explains the challenges that are unique to serving homeless youth and the steps our community can take to address those challenges.

June 12, 2019 by

New Housing Data Snapshot Page Available

Community Support Services partners with homeless service agencies in Charlotte-Mecklenburg to enter, collect, analyze and report data on housing and homelessness in the community. This includes regular, in-depth review of by-name lists in order to ensure that we understand the need and follow up with each person who has engaged the homeless and housing system. This blog post highlights the release of a new Housing Data Snapshot page, which provides regular reporting on three critical data points: One Number, By-Name List Movement and Coordinated Entry.

June 7, 2019 by

A New Approach to Affordable Housing: The Lotus Campaign, Part 3

The Lotus Campaign, which uses a market-based approach to address homelessness and housing affordability, launched in late July 2018.  The Lotus Campaign began with pilot projects in Charlotte, North Carolina.This is the third of three blog posts about their efforts.   To read more about how the Lotus Campaign got started, click here for the first blog post; click here to read the second blog post explaining how the model works. This final post in the series describes the impact Lotus has had over the past nine months.

May 10, 2019 by