Alliance Online News: SAMHSA to Host Webinar Series on Rural Homelessness

Alliance Online News View in browser www.endhomelessness.org Tuesday, August 11, 2015 spotlight on... SAMHSA to Host Webinar Series on Rural Homelessness This month, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is hosting a webinar series on homelessness in rural and frontier communities. The series, which SAMHSA is hosting with the Housing Resource Network, will cover effective strategies for rural communities around health care, housing, resources, and evidence-based practices. Speakers in the first webinar, scheduled for Thursday, August 13, will discuss rural outreach and engagement. Other webinars in the series will cover: August 17 - Resource Innovations August 20 - United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Housing Resources August 24 - Kentucky’s Housing Innovations August 27- HRSA and Rural Health Innovations August 31 - Rural Domestic Violence Register » New Rapid Re-Housing Resource: the Stability Conversation Guide The Alliance has added a new tool to the Rapid Re-Housing Toolkit to help case managers and program administrators determine whether a household who has received rapid re-housing services will need further rapid re-housing assistance. The tool, the Stability Conversation Guide, is based on the “progressive engagement” approach, a strategy in which rapid re-housing providers serve every household entering the homelessness system with a small amount of assistance and then perform monthly assessments to determine whether these households will require continued assistance to remain stably housed. Access the tool » alliance events UPCOMING WEBINAR: COORDINATED ENTRY AND SYSTEMS CHANGE Wednesday, August 26, 1 to 2 p.m. EDT On Wednesday, August 26, the Alliance will host a webinar on implementing coordinated entry. In this webinar, Cynthia Nagendra, director of the Alliance’s Center for Capacity Building, will provide an overview of coordinated entry, as well as the critical components: access, diversion, assessment and prioritization, and referral. This webinar is intended for providers in communities that are just getting started with coordinated entry, as well as those working to improve their existing coordinated entry systems. Register » from the blog Ending Homelessness Today the official blog of the national alliance to end homelessness CMS to Medicaid Directors: You Can Use Medicaid to Help Homeless People by Jayme Day In June, the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare. That was good news for the almost 6 million people who would have lost their health care insurance if the ruling had gone the other way. The ruling also meant that Obamacare is likely to remain intact. And with Obamacare in place, more and more states are likely to expand their Medicaid programs to cover people with low incomes, not just families or people with disabilities. This means that the majority of extremely low income and homeless persons can keep their access to health care in places that have expanded Medicaid. To date 30 states have expanded their Medicaid coverage. And other states may join the list. Read more » comments » | DC Mayor Muriel Bowser's Remarks, 2015 National Conference on Ending Homelessness by naehblog On behalf of the District of Columbia, it is my pleasure to welcome you all to our nation’s capital – where we have joined the nationwide race to end homelessness. Washington is a wonderful city, a world-class city.  This is my hometown, and I can tell you firsthand – we’ve come a long way since I was a kid. We enjoy one of the healthiest economies in the country. We are one of the fastest growing cities. We top just about every ‘top 10’ list when it comes to livability. And our city finances are strong. Yet despite our tremendous success and prosperity, prosperity does not reach every corner of our city. Read more » comments » | The Three C's of Diversion by Kay Moshier McDivitt Diversion has become a critical part of our conversations on how to end homelessness. But what do we really mean when we talk about diversion? It seems that when we start talking about how to implement diversion as part of a best practice crisis response system to end homelessness, everyone has a different idea of what it means. To make sure we are effectively using diversion as a best practice to meet the objective of reducing the number of people who become homeless, let’s start with what the word “diversion” means. According to the Cambridge American Dictionary, "diversion" is defined as “the act of causing something or someone to turn in a different direction.” Read more » comments » |