Detroit Continuum of Care — Board of Directors, 4.7.2025

10:37PM Apr 7, 2025

Speakers:

Keywords:

Board elections

governance charter

strategic plan

racial equity

housing stability

coordinated entry

permanent supportive housing

low income housing tax credit

McKinney Vento

homeless students

federal funding

action areas

committee structures

outreach services

tenant well-being.

Detroit Continuum of Care

Board of Directors

school district cohorts

homeless and foster care

Michelle Parker

charter schools

liaison information

public comment

COC coordinator

performance evaluation specialist

resource sheets

training website

client training opportunity

job postings

meeting minutes.

Uh, we there was a public comment to modify the time frame for board officers elections. So it read that the Detroit continued Bucha board, what elected chairperson, a Vice Chairperson, a secretary, a parliamentarian, and two at large members within the first quarter of the calendar year, with elections taking place no later than the March board meeting, and so that was agreed on by 100% of the population. However, I would point out that this was voted on in January of 2025 so the timeline for this may have been aggressive between public comment and the vote. I believe that that stretch of time may not have accounted for the timeline for this year. So we may need to do some more elections. But I imagine that as we collaborate, come together as a executive with the executive committee meetings and other meetings that this can be right size if we are behind schedule on this. We went into advancing the language by saying that in the absence of the chair, the co chair can be assumed for X amount of months. And it read that in the absence of the chair. The vice chair assumes the duties of the chair upon the end of the chair's term, the vice chair will assume all duties of the chair for six months until the new board. Chair elections have been held. If the outgoing chair is willing to extend their term to ensure continuity of leadership until a new chair is elected, then the COC board will allow for that interim extension. And so we do have a new chair. She is Erica George. And so that has been established already, and this was voted on by 92% of the population. We added a parliamentarian seat as that was not there before. And so the parliamentarians duties will ensure the board's adherence to proper meeting and voting procedures in accordance with the governor's charter. This role is responsible for providing additional meeting support to the board chair with opening and closing meetings, as well as calling motions to order and carrying out board votes. And so while that has been approved by 92% of the population, we will need to establish who the parliamentarian is going to be. So please be on the lookout for future elections concerning this seat, we added to add a time frame in the event a board seat becomes vacant, and so in the event of the elected seat vacancy, the members of the Detroit COC board will select a success third to hold the vacancy for the remainder. If there is at least six months left in that individual's term, if there are less than six months left in that term, the seat will remain vacant until the next election period. And so we have a little bit of gray area with the secretary seat. And so I imagine conversations about that would happen in the future as well. The next one is a pretty lengthy one, and so it said that the process needs to be developed for the removal or termination of board members in the event of any violations. And so this reads that the Detroit CLC board members are subject to abiding by code of conduct, conflict of interest and board member agreement. All concerns regarding violations of these agreements will be reported to the CLC board chair to be addressed and responded to independently or in collaboration with other board members if a violation is concerning the board chair, then it can be directed to the co chair or the executive of the cocd agency. Violations of expectations outlined in these agreements will result in the following day process. First infraction verbal warning, the second with a written warning, and third infraction with a motion to vote to remove, whatever votes of passing 50% of the COC board would result in removal. COC board members, elected or appointed may also be removed by a 75% vote of the seal of the Detroit COC board for calls and situations where behavior is bound to be ecretious enough to warrant an immediate vote for removal, which bypasses the process outlined above. This was put in place by a vote of 88% and I will move on from there. The next item was to strike the current language that read, each committee has two chair co chairs, one of which is a board member appointed by the board, and one of which is a member of the COC general body elected by a committee, which instead requires that all COC committees must have at least one seat to represent a board member. And so now it reads all the committees are responding. For having at least one seat to represent a board member, and so it eliminates the requirement that each committee is to have a co chair by a member of the board, and that is to keep the flexibility for our board members, and as we ask them to assist with the work here in our COC that was a unanimous vote of 100% the next item was the add language for the COC committees regarding work plans and guiding documents. And so this read that the COC committees will develop both work plans and guiding documents will be publicly available. Guiding document should outline committee meeting structure and voting status, committee purpose and vision, committee member expectations and road delineation of committee members and staff, and so that was voted on by 92% I don't know the status of all of the committees, but I do know that these work plans and guided documents are underway. The next item that was up for a vote was to add clarifying language, stating that the committee's guiding documents and work plans will be submitted to the board for review to ensure aligning with the strategic plan goals. So additionally, guiding documents and work plans will be submitted to the board for review. Assurance basically exactly both said before and so this was voted on by 92% of the population, as we have not had any meetings currently to have these guiding documents and work plans submitted to the board. I imagine that these items will be addressed in future board meetings. We also said that we wanted to add language regarding COC committees being required to upload meeting minutes as a standard to a shared drive, so all COC committees will be responsible for compiling and storing meeting minutes in a shared location, either hands website, Google Drive, etc, to promote system wide information sharing and transparency. Meeting Minutes will be archived for a minimum standard of three years. This was voted on by 92% of the population as a yes, and so we will look to find those in the future as well, we will have a time frame for when meeting minutes, for committees, meetings should be uploaded. And so things should be uploaded within 10 business days of each meeting. And so that was 90 that was voted on by Yes, by 96% of the population. And I will imagine that that will be established in the very future too. We added language addressing confidentiality to clarify when meeting minutes should be redacted. Minutes that includes sensitive information, such as sensitive or confidential information, client contact details, for instance, legal matters, security information, client data should be redacted. And so that was a United unanimous vote by the population. And I'm sure that we will see this in the fruition of meeting minutes in the future as the committees be together and establish those agendas and minutes, we agreed to add responsibilities to the committee section that address reporting to the board, developing guiding documents and creating work plans. And so it was to report out to the board regularly, regularly on the progress of the work plan and to create guiding documents. And so that was established by 92% of the population. And so we also voted to align all committee structures with committees outlined in a strategic System Improvement Plan process by adding the following committees, the racial and social equity committee, the COC funding performance, re imaging shelter and the unsheltered committee. And so those committees, I believe, have been established, the structures are underway, and we're looking to have that in the future. This was voted on by 96% of the population.

The next item was to remove committee categorization between the board versus COC committees, so to strike the current language unless approved by the COC. Board seats on the board committees will be held only by current board members, and so now we've opened that up for people with in the general membership population as well. So now it reads committee membership may include any person who, individually or as an employee of an agency, has a vested interest in the. Work of the committee, with the exception of the executive committee, and that was voted on by 92% of the population. And that has and that is has already been established as well. We added a description for the people with lived experience Council, and listed the DAG and the Yab under this section, and so it reads, in alignment with the CLCs vision, these bodies were established to foster power sharing and accountability within the systems for persons with lived experience of homelessness. Members are comprised of people with lived experience of homelessness the bodies within the PWh Leadership Council support the action planning of the system and help to ensure that decisions and policies are just and in alignment with the needs of the clients served by the system. There is a mutual accountability between these groups and the COC board to respond to feedback from one another and CO create solutions to issues facing the system. This accountability must include a genuine valuing of the voices of people within experience in which all persons feel safe to participate in discourse without fear or retaliation or dismissal of perspective the people with lived experience of homelessness. Leadership Council has the authority to make recommendations to the COC board for System Improvement and provide oversight, slash participate in the decisions made by the system that directly impact persons experiencing homelessness. And so that description is, in effect, the meetings for the council and the DAG and the Yap are already being done, and so that was agreed by 96% of the population. We added the ambassador program under the people with lived experience Leadership Council section. So the ambassador program works to empower clients through education and one to one support as capacity allows ambassadors assist with the client support liaison in providing education to clients about their rights within the system and helping them to mediate with providers when they feel their rights have been violated one second, they also empower clients through trainings on top its clients elevate and through connections to resources. This was voted yes by 84% of the population, and I believe the application process has begun for this program. Language needs to be adopted, adopted regarding the recertification of the COC and HMIs, a notice should be added if an entity plans to relinquish it, relinquish its role as the COC, HMIs or cam League. Procedures need to be developed for situations where a 75% vote threshold is not met to reaffirm designations, a process should be created for cases where any of the lead designations fail to meet performance evaluation requirements. This was voted on by 100% of the population in our reads, each designated entity will have expectations and processes outlined in their respective memorandums of understanding, which will clearly identify the metrics in which designated entities will be reviewed and considered for recertification of their designation. Furthermore, clearly defined timelines will be expressed should an entity wish to relinquish its designation. And these timelines will also be agreed upon in the MOUs. And so that is, again, that was agreed upon unanimously, and I believe such evaluations are underway. The final thing that we voted for was to divide the section of the code of conduct, conflict of interest and recusal process and to adopt a code of conduct for all general membership members. And so I believe that the draft for the Code of Conduct had is has been established, it just hasn't been presented and adopted. The procedure itself, yes, but the actual document, I believe, still has some work to do. And so that was agreed upon by 96 of the population. Again. To get to the governance charter, you can go to the website under continuum of care, under Documents, and this scroll to the bottom where it says, governance charter 2024 This concludes my presentation of the governance charter status. And I will pause for any questions you.

I Going once,

I do have a question. Come here. I'm sorry I'm looking forward with my reaction, but

I do will we move forward with

the racial and Equity Committee, or will it change? Or what is the plan? Because, you know, quote, dei is dead at HUD, so regardless of what we doing, just the sounding of that name,

yes. And so, very good point. Ms, Brown. And so, per Katie and our good folks who are working on that effort, the funding is not coming out of federal funding, so there was a work around for that. I believe that if that work should continue, it was not to happen using federal funding. And I believe that that group is trying to come up with creative language to still do the work without labeling it be I or any derivative of that nature. And Katie is here today, and so she gets to expound on that. So Katie Most definitely, if you will.

Hey, sorry, yeah, sure thing. I just wanted to clarify Tamara that the racial equity Equity Committee is something separate. So that may still be a conversation that we want to have and talk about how we want to proceed as a COC, but the work that you were referencing, and just to clarify for folks, is there's a our COC was accepted into, or invited to be a part of and then accepted into a 22 month cohort with three other communities across the nation, Baltimore, Chicago and Portland, where all of us are learning from each other and working together to improve the way that we center persons with lived experience of homelessness and the work We do as a system and that group is working on, as they're developing their plans and finalizing them, the strategic plan has been a major guide for that. And so the action area on leading our system towards equity and justice has been incorporated into all the planning for that work. And then, as Tamara mentioned, the funding for that comes from FHA, which is, I always forget funders for housing opportunities, I believe, which is a private foundation, and so that, that's what is being referenced there. But I do think there are still decisions for us as a community, and a COC for, you know, and I think that group is sorry. Let me go back to I think that group is trying to be mindful of the current administration. We met with fho, they affirmed that their funding is still supporting this work, and that they would encourage us to continue to advance that work, and we're encouraging communities to find creative ways to continue to promote equity in your community, maybe considering renaming or reframing how you do things, but that is that is a piece of the strategic plan and related to that racial equity committee, but not the racial equity committee itself. So definitely something for us to think about and to decide as a community, kind of how we want to proceed and how we can stay true to our mission and the things we want to advance together while also keeping our funding secure. So I definitely feel like those are are worth more conversations. So just wanted to clarify that. Hope that's helpful. Tamara, let me know if you have any questions or if that didn't make sense.

No, it made perfect sense. Yeah, so, and she's Miss Brown, said, Thanks, y'all. So I believe that that covers it. Ms Brown, for further context, we're going to go over this a little bit more in the upcoming presentation about the strategic plan, basically to regurgitate everything that Katie just said, to highlight the fact that in our current political climate, we do have to, if there should be a continuation of the work, some increased creativity, concerning that

any other questions? I have a full screen now, so I think I'm able to see some hands.

Okay, hearing none. I will turn it back over to Chelsea. I will temporarily stop my share. And thank you. All

right. Thank you Miss Gaines, and thank you everyone for your questions and attention to this presentation and for all the updates. I know that was a lot of work going into it, and so I appreciate you being able to present that to us, especially with our new. Urban and charter in place. We definitely wanted to make sure that people were aware of the changes that were made specifically. So again, thank you for doing that work. All right, we will now move on to our strategic plan, and that would be presented by hand and HRD,

yes, ma'am. And so I'm going to share my screen one more time.

And so if it's not coming out the way that I look like, can everybody see it a little bit clearly. Need

to zone.

You can to do full screen. You can do it control. L,

okay, thank you, Chelsea,

that didn't work.

We'll just go with it. Okay, we'll just go with this. It's fine. Everyone can see it, or you can go then I can see, I can see the numbers. So good morning again, everybody. These are the strategic plan updates again. My name is Tamara Gaines. I am the COC manager at hand, and joining with me today is good partner, Tara listener, with the city of Detroit, HRD. And before we get started, I like to be able to highlight and lift up that a presentation such as this is not generated by one person. And so I would like to highlight and thank the hand employees as well as the state of Detroit employees as well for all of their good works and their collaborative efforts as we go over the strategic plan and get everybody back in alignment with some of our updates. And so to that end, I'd like to turn this over to Tara, who was going to talk about some of the conceptualization of the strategic plan, how we got here, and some of the goals and things of that nature. So Tara, if you will take it away.

Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. As Tamara said, Tara Lister and the housing revitalization department at the city of Detroit, so if we go to the next slide, okay. So for folks that may not know or it's been a minute since we last talked about this. The strategic plan was was facilitated by a consultant group called Barbie, Barbara Poppy and Associates. So it worked through for basically a year in our community, from April of 2023, through March of 2024 the last, the last couple of months after that were kind of concluded. They spent finalizing the strategic plan with the final copy issued in August of 2024 the roadmap used by community in our decision making and design programming. And so the plan. I don't actually know who will link to this plan, so once I'm done with my section, I'll make sure the link is quite in the chat where you can sign the full plan, as well as all of the documents and meeting minutes from the work is on the city's website, but it talks the content of the plan has visions and goals, principles, improvement action area I improvement action areas, and then Work Plan. Go to the next slide, we can just see that there's a shared vision that is really just rooted in an equitable, just future that ensures housing stability for every Detroiter. There are six shared goals on hearing you can see them on the screen. I'm not going to read through everyone, but I'll just highlight a few key words from each so the first is our equity and justice and ensuring that people with lived experience play key roles. The second is making sure that households receive assistance that is based on their household needs. The third is making sure that we have enough housing resources to meet the need. The fourth is looking at folks experiencing homelessness holistically and making sure that they are supported as such. Five, is funding will be coordinated through the homelessness response system that aligns with system needs. And then six, emergency rehab, the and prevention services are designed to ultimately reduce overall homelessness and prevent first time homeless turn over to Tamara.

Yes, ma'am. And so there are a couple of things that I wanted to highlight. We've had some current events to miss Brown's point that's affecting our. Strategic Plan. And so to go over some of this, and I just went to the first skip the slide. So this is the first one. And so in November 2024 we had our presidential election, and a new administrator, a new administration was established. On inauguration day, we saw a slew of executive orders to come out, and so the first one is for defending women from gender ideology extremism and restored biological truth. What that did is that it causes more than alarm for our transgender population, and it is affecting the work and how we show up for them in our programs protecting American people against invasion. And so it required the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to review contracts, grants and other agreements that had to do with illegal aliens for conformity, conformity, waste, fraud and fees and compliance. It terminated agreements to be in violation, and so really, it had to do with the immigrant population, and the idea of rolling back programs and services and funding that had to do with that particular demographic also affected in our efforts is the racial equity efforts by way of the executive executive orders in the radical and wasteful dei programs and preferences, and so that was the termination of programs and federal agencies, including equity related grants and action plans. And then also there was the initial resistance of harmful, what was called harmful executive orders and actions. And so many of the executive orders that was presented by the Biden administration were rolled back. And so those included expanding dei and federal government programs, the workforce and underserved communities. And then in February of this year, there was a vlpm issued a memo instructing the agencies to eliminate the DEI offices, policies and programs. And so also in that same month, on the 21st the there was a federal judge that issued a preliminary injection so blocked the termination of those programs and contracts and rendered them potentially unconstitutional. However, in March of this year, the appellate court removed the injection and allowed the government to still continue with this policy, while the litigation continues, also in January the 21st the day after in operation, day there was the executive order ending illegal discrimination and restored merit based opportunity. And so this also has to do with a lot of DEI efforts, so more determination of the EI related contractors, and the removing of outward facing media, so websites, social media, offices or initiatives and so that speaks to also what Ms Brown was talking about, and the concern of whether or not this work can continue. And if so, how January of 2027, of 2025, there was a pause when all federal funding, of course, this impacted all of us, essentially all of our programs, whether it was housing, whether it was shelter, you know, HDb, vouchers, all of that was pretty much cut off, and then it was rescinded with the potential filing of different lawsuits in February of 2025, this year. There, we all know of this current event that where the where there was a family crisis and tragedy concerning to beautiful children, and so that tragedy has caused us to take pause and to call to question our services, and to call to question how we show up and how can we do better. And with that, out of that came the mayor's seven point plan. So to continue on with our strategic plan, we have eight improvement action areas. So we have establishing structures needed for Plan Implementation, leading the system towards equity and justice, enhancing and staffing and capacity across our systems, advocating for resources, building on our improvement efforts, strengthening every energy shelter, expanding our housing supply and rebuilding an effective re housing system, and then ultimately reducing unsheltered homelessness. We're going to go into each of each one of those so that we can talk about where we are with with each of those action. Areas. I'll start with establishing the structures needed for plant implementation. The objectives here were to reconceive the continuum of care, structures and protocols, to support plan implementation, to stand up and interagency funder, funders, Council and to launch priority activities. And so, as we mentioned earlier in the previous presentation, the governor's charter was updated and it was voted on january 2025, we also had our first meeting of the inter agency, funders Council Think Tank. It was held this fall. Then earlier in the year, we organized a power mapping session to identify key individuals for the funders Council. Funding has also been secured for the funders Council, and the establishment of new committee structures have been completed with the approved governance charter. Actually,

can I just sorry I didn't realize that this was in this order. Let me just, I just wanted to provide clarity on this one. So NSF funding has been secured for the funders council that has been for the staffer that would awareness Council and work on like recruitment, agenda planning information with the COC board. But that funding will be active as of July one. So just to kind of give folks just a little bit more information on that. Sorry, sorry for interrupting. No,

I needed that. Thank you so much. We'll go on to leading the system towards equity and justice. Again, we can't say enough how much this is affecting our work here with the current climate, but the initial objectives prior to the election of the new administration was to foster and build trust across the homeless for system to drive progress on accountability. We also wanted to establish a shared understanding of what equity and justice principles were. We wanted to ensure adequate levels of funding were available within the system to remove barriers for performance of leadership, decision making and guidance roles by people with lived experience, and to support professional growth and development of individuals with lived experience of homelessness and facilitate their transition into paid staff and leadership roles. The word continues, as Katie said, it's just in a different form, and it's under the 2020 the 22 month program that she mentioned. So as as mentioned, any updates, our COC was selected to participate in this community of practice program with Baltimore, Chicago and Portland, they're developing an action plan to guide the efforts, and the strategic plan objective has been a guidance pillar in the conversation. They're creating the action plan, and once it's finished, the team will go into implementing various efforts to develop the expectations for COC leadership to create trainings, they will provide updates, and the relevant COC bodies will be brought in throughout the process. And of course, Katie is more than happy to answer any additional questions, and so you can reach out to her directly at Katie at hand, detroit.org i The next one was to enhance staffing and capacity across the homeless response system. And so two very simple objectives was to enhance the compensation of frontline staff and the representation of people with lived experience within paid staff roles across our homeless response system, and to enhance the data consistency, skills and knowledge of staff members within programs across our system. And so the few updates we have is that we the city of Detroit, 2026 ESG, CDBG, notice NOFA inquired about staffing capacity and the representation of individuals with lived experience. So that's going to be one of those criteria for for for the funding in the future, the county evaluation collected survey responses and individual feedback from over 100 responders within our homes response system to include frontline staff, and then the community standards for shelters and diversion training have been implemented for shelter staff throughout the system. So they are beginning with some of the trainings for our frontline staff, advocating for resources. There were two objectives here, and so they were to expand the organized advocacy efforts folks focused on achieving increased availability of resources, and then also to secure an expanded array of resources to better enable the homes response system to achieve the community's commitments to connect people quickly, quickly and efficiently to housing and services. Um. Uh, transparently. And I'm going to go to the second bullet, because it's important to highlight that the bulk of this work was slated for 2026 it was supposed to happen next year, um, due to the changes in the political climate, it'd be necessary to advance some of the the initiatives and to apply and advocate advocacy efforts this year so that is HRD increased this request for city general funds. And then the COC lead agencies across Southeast Michigan are meeting monthly on the next agenda, which is the meeting is happening next week. They're going over possibilities to align advocacy efforts for resources across Southeast Michigan, and so that consortium is included B agencies from Detroit out Wayne County, Macomb County, Oakland County and Washtenaw counties, Building upon existing improvement efforts was the next action action item. And so I had to break this one up into two different slides, because it was it got a little busy after a while, we can get our all of our logos in on there. And so just just to highlight a few of them to solidify the foundational operations of cam to clarify and strengthen Cam's roles and partnerships within the homeless response system, to assess and strengthen the implementation of programs throughout the yhdp, advanced youth led implementation of the CCP to apply the Vision and guiding principles embraced within the Ypp and CCP across all efforts for preventing it, and then youth homelessness. And the CCP is the Coordinated Community Plan, which was generated by our youth, and also, finally, to achieve functional zero for veteran homelessness throughout continued implementation of the data driven bill for zero initiative. So the updates for for that is that we have youth led implementation of the CCP, and it continues on the committee of youth homelessness. The current work that's happening is the designing, the direct cash transfer programming. We're currently evaluating the YP efforts and making sure resources are more accessible to the youth. And we're also trying to form new partnerships as well. We're working closely with the veterans Leadership Committee to bolster the better by nameless analysis, enhancing efficient and equitable resource allocation. And then finally, a coordinator in coordination with our systems coordination. We're implementing partners and building relationships and establishing MOUs with domestic violence providers, physical and behavior health providers and other permanent supportive housing providers to bring it home, I am going to pass the mic to Tara, who is going to continue on with strengthening and re imaging shelter.

So you can see on the left hand side of the improvement objectives. So remember, this is a plan for, you know, for five years. So I'm just keeping that in mind that much of the work has started. Something hasn't started and won't start for a while. It just really kind of depends on the different activities that are outlined in the plan and the timelines associated with them. So it talks about enhancing the quality of the facilities being used in shelter spending, the supply of shelter options, so and then looking at services, enhancing the services within shelter programs, making sure that people understand the different options, and that they're able to be explained to folks in In a way that basically making sure that both frontline staff, management staff executive leaders understand different options for shelters and services and can explain that to folks that they are serving and fostering some stronger person centered cultures within the shelter programs. So updates on this is that the city of Detroit had their annual ESG, CDBG, notice the funding or NOFA, many of the questions in there were adjusted to align with the person centered plan. We added a new type of bed drop in center beds for folks who are unsheltered in order for them to have immediate access to shelter, we launched a new program called the rapid shelter exit program, which is focusing on households who are at a lower community, basically who most likely they're going to score for rapid housing. In, but they are kind of going to fall down towards the bottom list, and the chances of them getting full of that resource are very slim. And our ag for folks, which basically are folks that, according to the assessment tool, just receive case management services only. So focusing on those households to see how, how the staff can assist them and immediately exiting out of shelter to someplace, looking at developing an outreach awareness campaign. This is connected to the mayor's seven point plan about how folks who are in a housing crisis can get access for services, establishing a 24 hour helpline for folks, so that if they are experiencing unsheltered homelessness, after additional business hours, which you know, obviously does happen, they have some place to call and get access to outreach and then peer recovery coaches, which go into our shelters and help connect residents with substance substance use programming such as inpatient, outpatient or simply just like peer recovery coaching, just talking to them about different harm reduction models that they methods that they could use, expanding housing supply and building an effective re housing system. So the improvement objectives talk about deeply affordable rental housing, which we the city has released or released their affordable housing Notice of Funding, which has $2 million earmarked for permanent supportive housing development as well as the pilot, in lieu of taxes, ordinance, which will be able to provide incentives to construct deeply affordable housing, which is what we call housing that scores zero 30% AMI, as well as Psh, other objectives including expanding the supply of housing options with appropriate services, which we actually were able to bring on recovery housing beds through the opioid settlement funds dollars, and going to start experimenting with what that would look like in order to be able to make direct referrals to some of those recovery housing beds through The coordinated entry system, so that's something that is very much built in and process the other improvement objectives. Sorry, I was trying to, like, match improvement objectives with updates, but I don't think it's really working very well. I'm just gonna finish with the improvement objectives and then I'll go to updates. Let's try to, like, pair them together. But some of the other objectives just include strengthening housing navigation services, landlord engagement, enhancing and standardizing psh, psh, psh, both on the life tech side and the COC side, and then enhancing services to help people secure housing and end their homelessness. So in addition to the things that I already talked about, HRD hired a staff person that was so focused on permanent, supportive housing, low income housing tax credits or light tech to help facilitate those developments, but also making sure that any developments that are supported with city funding is aligned with the COC priority. And then in 2025 so far, 114 new permanent supportive housing units have opened it up through the anchor and different my site property or my site developments, and we expect to have 51 more units COVID between Benjamin Ompa and st Matthews, reducing unsheltered homelessness. The objectives talk about a system wide strategy for engagement for folks who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness, but strengthening outreach by building both capacity and resources of those providers and having outreach teams have access to the type of housing or outreach teams and services have access to the type of housing options and strategies that would work for all households who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness, they're basically having different options for them. So updates, we have 24/7, outreach availability. We also have outreach services now that are directly on the cam away message. So once cam is closed, on that away message, there is a number that folks can call if they are experiencing unsheltered homelessness and get connected with an outreach team that night. The seven point plan talked about having outreach visits for all households with minors, including those who are unsheltered, also those who have imminent risk of loss of housing. Oh. Using the police produce a safe havens, just additional another option for folks, if they want to feel comfortable going to police producing, if they can, obviously don't have to, because they can call that outreach number. We have street medicine teams that have been brought online. Part of street medicine also includes a housing navigator that's partnered with NSO. And then we're continuing to have our CO response strategy with the health department and police department in order to connect individuals with services, as opposed to enforcement methods.

From you.

Thanks, Tara. We're going to pause for questions. I am uploading the governor's charter as well as the strategic plan. I got it for you, Tara, to the chat so that everyone can have it. But we are pausing now for any questions. Here

going on? I see Eleanor.

Hi. This is for the city of Detroit, part of their updates. Thank you for adding the new staff, I noticed that you are added peer to recovery coaches, which I think is awesome. Has there been a thought, maybe also to add peer support specialists, being that mental health is also something that is needed for support, especially for our people that are sheltered and experiencing homelessness knowing that they just work more towards the mental health side. So just was asking, or could it be a consideration? Yeah, thanks for the question.

So the peer recovery supports are actually funded through opioid settlement dollar funding, and so their role is really focused on folks who have substance use disorder. So that's kind of, that's kind of where that focus is. So there has to be, because of the funding, there has to be connection with substance use disorder at this time.

Thank you for the question. Eleanor,

if that suffices, we will do a another pause for any questions.

I think you have one in the chat here. Is

there a due date for the committee where it plans to be turned into the board? None that I know of right now. I believe that that has to be worked out as we go to executive committee meetings and try to work out what that may look like. So maybe some internal meetings, executive committee meetings, and a collaboration of partners to establish a due date that is agreeable for everyone, that is my immediate response to that.

But to your point, there is a lot, a lot to a lot to do, and a lot of a lot on our radar in the near future. Okay, Miss George, if there are no other questions, we wanted to say thank you for the presentation today, and we will turn it back over to the COC elected officials.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you both presenting and giving us those updates, and thank you all for your attention. All right, so seeing nothing else, no other questions or anything popping through, we are going to keep moving forward. Y'all thank you so next we have our cam updates, and we will be hearing from Zach.

Hi, Eric is actually gonna be me. Zach, deployed. I will be standing in his bed. So just really one update, and that is actually looking for some guidance from you all. As you all know, we have our cam Governance Committee, and that committee is charged with the oversight and implementation of coordinated entry here in Detroit, they work with the cam implementers as well as the CLC board and the community to make any sort of policy changes or strategic changes to the way the cam system works. And as. Does the COC board? You all have a representative that sits on the COC board, or at least, you have a seat for a representative to sit on the cam Governance Committee. That seat was vacated, excuse me, earlier this year when the current member, who's the term expired. And so we want to thank Courtney Smith for her services. Her board term expired, and so that seat is now vacant. And so we are coming to you all first to gage your interest, whoever may be interested as a board member to serve on the cam Governance Committee, if you could share that interest, I will say, by next week, and I'll drop a link to a form in the chat for you all to kind of share your interest. And then we will confer with the COC board chair to determine how that person, or persons will be elected to serve on the cam Governance Committee. I believe the term is a two year term, but I will confirm that and drop that in the chat as well either a two or three year term. And the cam Governance Committee meets bi weekly from nine to 10am on Wednesday morning. So that will probably be your expected commitment, at least bi weekly, from nine to 10am occasionally, there are maybe some other meetings that are called, but advanced notice will be provided as well as there is the need to read materials outside of meetings and then come to those meetings prepared. So that is the announcement. If you have any questions, please let me know, and looking forward to getting you all interest for serving on a cam Governance Committee. Thank you, Erica. Hand things back over to you.

Thank you so much. I appreciate that update, and we look forward to those of you all who are interested. So please again, I know Miss Grace says she'll put the link in the chat, so be on the lookout for that.

Excuse me all right. Chelsea, we have,

oh, I see a hand. Yes. Lydia,

sorry really quickly for the committee. That Ms gray just spoke about if we're already a member, but we want to change to represent a different like, okay, so I'm on there, but I'm representing outreach, but I'd like to switch to open the seat up for a different outreach worker, or whatever. Would I still click that link and fill it out even on already?

Does that make sense? Yes,

I would say yes, so that we can keep all of the interest in one spot. It would be great if you could just fill that out. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank it

all right. So,

yep, are we ready for break now? Chelsea, all right, so we will take a we got five minutes break and then come back. All right, so five minute break. So that's about what,

313, or so

there. So we can stay on our zoom, but take a five minute break and we will See you back shortly. You

I think I got an extra minute there, maybe, but we are back.

I see a question in the chat that might be for MS gray.

All right, moving forward now, we will hear from Amanda Sternberg on our FY. F, 2024, COC grant status,

all right, thank you. Me share my screen.

Okay?

Did you do one moment, please. All right, I'm going to give an update on where we are with our 2024 COC funding. So just by way of some kind of background context, I think we talked about this briefly at our February meeting, but just kind of as a reminder that HUD made funding announcements for the 2024 competition on January 17. These were for applications that were submitted last October. Excuse slide says September, they were actually submitted in October. So in the 2024 competition, we were awarded a total of over, slightly over $40 million in renewal and new project funding. That did represent almost a 15% increase from the 2023 awards. That increase was primarily due to adjustments that HUD was obligated to make, to account for increases in fair market rent or FMR, and to account for increase in service budgets for cost of living increases. So that is really what contributed to us being awarded 15% more funding in 2024 than we were in 2023 of that $40 million the vast majority, $37.7 million of it is renewal funding. And a smaller portion, 2.4 almost 2.5 million was new project funding. That new project funding included our COC planning grant, which is considered new every year, and one new permanent supportive housing project. So this was all the information that we were of what was awarded in January. So where we are now with the status of these grant agreements. So again, for some additional context for those who may not be familiar with these COC Awards, the grant agreements occurred directly between HUD and the recipient agency. So while hand as the C lead agency does have some sub recipient related agreements with some grantees, particularly for yhdp By and large, these grant agreements are signed directly between HUD and the agency. All of our grants also have different project start dates. So these don't all operate on like a calendar year or federal fiscal year. They all have start dates at various points throughout the calendar year. So the 2024 grant agreements, 2024 funding is for projects that would have a grant term that will start in 2025 and go through 2026 so a 12 month grant term. As of right now, HUD is starting to issue those grant agreements. There was some concern earlier in February and March, just with the new administration, as to whether or not grant agreements would even be issued, they are starting to be issued. HUD is prioritizing getting out those grant agreements for projects that have start dates in the early part of the calendar year. So kind of those January to March, April start dates I do know of, you know, some recipients in Detroit that have already received and executed their grant agreements. And some are, you know, kind of in process. So that is good news. And the grant agreements are coming, and thus far, the award amounts in those grant agreements are the same as what was announced back in January, projects that have start dates later in this calendar year, or projects that are consolidating together, you know, consolidating multiple projects into one and a new project. Those grant agreements might be we're anticipating that they will be issued by HUD a little bit later. We do still expect them to come, but we just understand that HUD is prioritizing those grant agreements that have earlier start dates. So hand is keeping in contact with our agencies as they are getting those grant agreements. We're kind of keeping track, because it's really helpful for us to know as those grant agreements come and as they are signed, particularly because some of the grants have already expired, and so agencies are continuing to incur costs with the intent to be able to go kind of back bill for those costs that they've already occurred on. Um, which, on the one hand, is not atypical. We do often see that in the competition for these grants to have earlier start dates. We earlier this year, in about February or March, we were starting to get kind of a heads up that these grant agreements, when they would come, we're likely going to have new or additional language added to them that perhaps we haven't normally seen in these grant agreements, with this language or expectations being a reflection of the new administration's priorities. So this is some of the new language that we have become aware of that is in these grant agreements that is not hasn't typically been seen in the past. So restrictions on using COC funds to promote gender ideology, a certification that the recipient will be compliant with federal anti discrimination laws, restrictions on using funds to fund or promote elective abortions, prohibition for state and local governments to use the funds to support undocumented individuals or to protect them from deportation. There are some additional requirements to confirm an individual with immigration status prior to providing assistance. And I think has been, as has been noted in the chat already, that HUD has made a statement that they are shifting away from foreseeing Housing First. So these are some, this is kind of a high level overview of some of the new language that we have become aware is in the new grant agreements. I will also note that some of the new language in these grant agreements is vague and a bit unclear as to how it will be enforced. That is a question that is on many of our minds. It's not a question that's on the minds of many of my COC colleagues around the country. Hand has been encouraging COC recipients that if you know before they sign their grant agreements. If they feel they need to seek legal counsel or legal advice they feel they need further clarification before signing, just as a reminder that for these recipient agencies, they are entering into a legal agreement with HUD and so if they feel they need legal advice before doing so, that is certainly their prerogative. Hand. Continues to keep our ears on the ground, we continue to follow very closely what is happening and any communications that are coming from other national organizations that may be able to provide the types of communication that we're not getting directly from HUD. So this could be entities like the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the National homelessness Law Center, again, our COC colleagues around the country, we are definitely keeping very close tabs on the situation, kind of as it evolves. I will say too. This is not on my slide, but I just wanted to make mention of it that, and this is what I think was alluded to a little bit in Tamara's presentation on the strategic plan that the COC, I would say, is really at a point where you know there are going to be certain, I think policy stances and policy decisions that we as the COC are going to need to really solidify and firm up and to really be able to understand and communicate what That would mean. So perhaps, for example, if the COC continues to take a stance on supporting housing first and recognizing that as the best practice, what may that mean in terms of funding, or how we communicate that to recipient agencies, that is just kind of one example. So I think, given that we are operating in a new environment. Again, I think Katie also alluded to this as well, and talking about the racial equity work that has been done, you know, I think we're going to see more of those conversations, likely more of those conversations being brought here to the COC board, just in terms of really making it clear, what are our values and what are we prioritizing, even in light of, you know, the direction that this current administration is going. What are the things that we are going to continue to prioritize and pull fast to? So again, those conversations are still to come, and so I would just say, continue to, you know, be on the lookout for that. So again for 2024 I should say the 2024 funding terms that was for grant terms are going to start, starting this calendar year and going through next year. Our anticipation and our understanding is that those projects will be funded at the amount that they were awarded for based on the January announcements

briefly looking ahead to the FY 2025 so these would be for grants that have a term starting in 2026 and going to 2027 for the most part, our COC grants all operate on just 12 months of. Terms. So in looking ahead, we're really looking ahead to kind of a year from now. So the continuing resolution that was signed by the President on March 17, March 15, excuse me, provided the funding levels for those FY 2025, grants. So based on the analysis that we've seen, it's anticipated that this appropriation may not may be insufficient to fully fund all renewal projects. However, I will give the caveat that there is some unclarity if HUD may be repurposing the funding that had been initially intended for COC bills, which was a separate funding opportunity that took place last year, but for which awards have not been announced, there's been some I've seen some things both ways that says HUD may use the funding from COC bills and instead use that to fund our typical COC programs. I've seen other communication that has said the opposite. So this is sort of hard for the course these days, and that sometimes we hear not entirely clear communication, but nevertheless, we are looking at the potential of for the going into the 2627 grant terms unknown at this point, if there will be sufficient funding to continue to fully fund those renewals at the level they currently are we also are keeping our eyes out that HUD may end up reissuing the no vote this year. Last year, the Notice of Funding Opportunity, or the no vote indicated that there would be a two year funding cycle, meaning that projects that were funded last year, ie those that are getting those, those grant agreements now would be essentially automatically renewed for another year. However, there was language in the NOFO that, of course, gives HUD the ability to reissue that notice to essentially require a local competition in light of changes in HUD priorities or funding levels. So again, we are still kind of operating in a bit of an unknown scenario at this point as to whether or not there will be any type of local application process or kind of scoping out some different possible scenarios. But at this point, there's no real kind of direction, or, I guess, firm guidance in terms of what is occurring. I do. I just hear a comment in the chat. Where did this new language leave trans folks that are unhoused or homeless? We want everyone to be housed. I would say, you know so in terms of our local priorities when it comes to housing people, the city of Detroit, who funds our shelter programs, has made it clear that the Equal access rule, equal access expectations are still in play. We still expect people to be able to access the homeless response system as they have to be able to be, you know, assessed and referred to those housing resources that they may be eligible for. So

I realized that was kind of a high level of information. It may not be as solidly you know is what we know at this time we're really operating. Sometimes it feels like on a data day to day basis in terms of the level of information that we get from HUD in terms of how to move forward, but this is kind of what we know at this point. So any other questions, I'll

turn it back over to Erica.

Great. Thank you, Amanda and again. Thank you for the questions. Obviously, as we try to move forward and navigate through this, these updates are very helpful, and we'll continue to update our CLC as we move forward. Can we before we head to the LIHTC presentation? Can we circle back to miss gray really quick,

Chelsea,

or Yeah,

do you need the slide? Yes?

Yeah, Hi y'all. It's me again. Thank you for startling back. Erica, as I mentioned, I am filling in for Zach, and apparently I'm not doing a great job of doing so, because I did miss one announcement and Chelsea was pulling up that slide. It's related to the cam evaluation. So just wanted to give you all some updates in respect to that. As a COC that oversees a coordinated industry, we. We are required to do an annual evaluation of cam, and so we're in the midst of that annual evaluation. We had a team that identified, through some proposals, a consultant who is conducting that evaluation. And so some of you all, I believe, have already taken surveys. I think we had over 100 responses to surveys that went out as a real estate to Cam, the consultant was also doing some on site observations this past week. So I believe there will be some feedback and report out about those observations that came out of the various meetings with Cam implementing partners going to the various access sites and being able to also talk with people who were accessing cam services, either via phone or at those access sites. So there is the final report, to my knowledge, will be available in sometime in May. And prior to that, the draft report will be going to Cam governance, as they are, the committee that oversees that evaluation. So everything is underway, and we look forward to getting the results from that evaluation and seeing what improvements our system can make, and also what our efforts that that we are doing well and will continue to implement. So just want to make sure that you all got some updates about what was happening related to the cam evaluation. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. Thank you.

Thank you. And you said those thoughts will be out in May. Is that correct? Yes. Okay, great. I'm not seeing any other questions right now or in the chat. May will be the evaluation. I'm assuming the final report will come out in May. So the results from that evaluation that they're currently doing now at these access sites.

All right, hopefully that answered your question and we can move forward and go to our next presentation On our COC, LIHTC, lease up team. So Eleanor, you

I saw her earlier.

I'm here. Okay. I ship of multiple screens. Hello, everybody. My name is Eleanor Bradford. I My name is Eleanor Bradford. I am the systems coordinator of housing. I work for Homeless Action Network of Detroit, and just wanted to take some time, I don't know if Chelsea is able to pull it up on the screen and just share with you all some changes that has happened in our COC to better support our teams. So we have created a continuum of care, permanent, supportive housing, low income housing, tax credit, lease of team, so our COC, psh, liht, lease of team. What this is, is a collaborative of Han employees that are responsible for supporting and training the PSH project teams that are developing housing with low income housing tax credit and project based vouchers in the Detroit COC, make you bigger. I sure, Chelsea, did you make it a little bigger for the if it's possible, okay, is that better?

Yes, thank you.

No problem. The purpose of this team is to provide guidance, training and support to the PSH developments as they are ramping up, and have a unified understanding of what it is to serve in our Detroit CLC, the goals of the goals and the key responsibilities of this team is that we are here to increase help increase housing stability, so that also in. Ensures that the tenants in the PSH units are able, once they are in Psh, that they stay in permanent housing to reduce homelessness, so to help contribute to the overall reduction of homelessness in our continuum, also improving tenant well being, referring the tenants to the support they need to improve their overall well being and quality of life. So for our well being, our referral system comes from our HMIs and our coordinated entry. Of course, we're trying to make sure that the operations in our system are centralized and aligned with the COC, also identifying our PSH clients, knowing that in our continuum, currently, we prioritize our acuity group one chronically homeless clients, and so those clients are the clients that will be referred to the PSU PSH units. Currently also making sure that project coordination and engagement is not only to the team, but to the residents that the potential residents that are going into the units. We can scroll down a little. So just want to talk to you about who are the people that are on this team. So myself, yours truly, Eleanor Bradford, my role typically, is responsible for the coordination and engagement. So once the project receives a letter of support, or if they are receiving a letter, or if they are seeking a letter of support from the Detroit continuum, I facilitate the necessary meetings and training with that team and with the project. So I'm responsible for engagement and coordinating for appointments with the departments, and also to make sure that the process is equitable access and housing services for those experiencing homelessness. Scroll down for the for the purposes of identifying the eligible tenants. Also our teammates on this lease up team is in C last our Coordinated Entry System Operations Manager. His purpose is overseeing the referral process and the housing prioritization, also overseeing the Coordinated Entry data workflows, he collaborates with providers, helps to train and ensure Coordinated Entry policies are understood and followed effectively, connecting households to housing resources, along with the referral coordinator as a primary contact for any referrals of coordinated entry and our referral coordinator is Remi pool. She is our cam housing referral coordinator, where she provides direct services to our coordinated entry staff that can be our navigators, our providers within the CLC, she serves as the liaison to the community partners and the providers her day to day responsibilities rely so fully on the Coordinated Entry data and the prioritization management of the list, which connects the homeless population to transitional, permanent and rapid rehousing programs. In her role, she directs housing referrals, she is the direct housing referrals, matching clients with the Coordinated Entry prioritization list to the providers as the vacancies become available, our next staff member that is a part of this lease of team is our is our performance management analyst from our systems operations, which is Amanda Sternberg. She helps to ensure project alignment with CLC regulations if they are COC funded, but also bringing the understanding of HUD requirements and alignment with PSH best practices. Amanda also helps provide insight and assistance to the projects as they ramp up and begin operations. Our HMIs Coordinated Entry responsibility, which is our database system that we utilize within our continuum of care. That is our own, Kiana Harrison, which is our HMIs manager, and her team, they oversee the Homeless Management Information System with her system administrators who provide technical assistance and support services to agencies involved with the clcps h process and the program. They provide support technical assistance data collection, and they are overseeing the reporting and the HMIs support, data driven decision making and service delivery options. How do I contact these members of the team? We have a unified email, which is CLC, Lisa team at hand, Detroit. You might receive some emails from this email. However, if you want to email us individually for our various roles that we carry in this team, we can scroll down a little. Little bit. Here is our here is our contact information. My email is at the top for project coordination, also the HMIs support at hand detroit.org if you are a new agency and you know that you are beginning to lease up in your project, it is highly and strongly encouraged that you reach out to HMIs support so you can begin your agency onboarding, so there won't be any delays in your project for referrals, also for coordinating issue referrals process. There is an email. It is referrals at hand detroit.org for training purposes, if you need additional training outside is outside of what is a part of this team and providing some additional support. You can reach our training at hand detroit.org email, and they will provide you sometimes to our learning management information system and to some online other trainings for seeing it, CLC, regulations and funding. It is our own. Amanda Sternberg at Amanda at Handy trade.org just wanted to present this new information so you all will know the changes that is going on into our continuum of how hand is coming to you all boots on the ground, we provide in person support also, and just letting you know some of the changes. Do we have any questions?

I don't see any hands. So thank you, Detroit CEO city. Have a great day.

Thank you so much. Miss Bradford. This was great information. We appreciate it. I do have one question, will that and I'm sorry if I missed it, will that be posted somewhere on the hand website, or perfect? Thank you so much.

Alrighty, we have another question in the chat. Oh, all right,

does Amanda also do the monitoring for this project? That's for Miss Brown?

No for the light tag projects. No, Amanda does not monitor the light projects.

So who monitors those projects?

Mister, okay.

And then can we get a link? So I'm assuming we were just talking about poster, right, okay, want to make sure. All right. Moving forward to announcements, if anyone has any announcements, we will take those, but I do want to start off with an announcement that I know we have already from Michelle Parker with McKinney vento. I did ask for her to be here today to give us some updates. As I recall this being a request, kind of from some of the members of our board, as far as how we get connected with McKinney Vento and getting those services, especially for our children. So I wanted to make sure that we followed up with that and have that information presented. So Miss Parker, if you're on and if we could take maybe five minutes or so to present on that and take time for any questions that anyone may have, I'm

gonna go ahead and share my screen if I can. Don't worry about all of that other stuff you see budgets. I

a second. All right, are you able to see my screen?

Yes, is it a way to make it bigger at all?

Oh, it's not showing up here. Hold on a second. Let me stop.

Yeah, see if you can make it the link at the Yeah. What can you see? I can see the full screen now, okay,

yeah, cuz we, we are teams group over here. So you know, I'm on Zoom.

I got you. Thank you so much.

Okay, so first of all, I thank you all for having me again today to present. My name is Michelle Parker, and I am with Detroit Public Schools community district. Want to make sure that the. Slides are moving because it doesn't work. They're moving all right. So I want Detroit public schools, community district, and as many of you all may know, the federal law requires us to identify and support students without a fixed, regular or adequate place to stay. This include those that are living doubled up, you know, staying temporarily with others, hotel, motels, cars and shelters, you know, and as the homeless liaison, you know, I'm the director resource for those students, with the help of not only my team, but also our SPOCs, which are our school point of contacts that are in every building so but you all are often the first notice signs when you come across some of the families that's coming to your agency that needs some some assistance that experience in homelessness, and how you can get them connected with us, the relationship that we build with them is very important. So I wanted to share with you all just, just some data that we have. You know, 3000 almost 3200 students in our district experience homelessness last academic year, which shows an increase of about 89% increase as of this past Wednesday on April the third. You know, we had a 38 3800 students that qualified for that were living in transition. I'm sorry, of that amount, 409 of those students are in foster care, and another 3500 are homeless. And of that total, we have close to 2200 students that are staying doubled up. We have about 387 I'm in hotel, motel. 350 that's in shelters. 210 that's in transitional housing. 211 are unaccompanied youth. Mean they are living, you know, without their custodial parents. And then we have 11, one, I mean, 111 of these families that stay in unsheltered so these students face barriers, you know, that can impact their tenants and everything. So again, with McKinney Vento, our goal is, you know, we have to follow the federal law so it defines as a student who lacks, you know, a fixed, regular, adequate nighttime stay. This applies to public school districts and public charter for those that did know, the ultimate goal is to, you know, make sure that our goal is to remove the barriers that our families face when they come to try to enroll if they need transportation, to make sure that successful in school. When we look at the definition of fixed, regular and adequate. These are some of the categories that we train outside stakeholders as well as our personnel. That's in Detroit public schools, we ask them to ask the question to themselves, can the student go to the same place, you know, which is fixed? Can they go there every night, which is regular, you know, to sleep in these spaces? Is it adequate? So a lot of these is when we have our school point of contacts. Again, like I said, they cost box. They usually ask these questions, and they also look for signs. If a family is determined that they can meet requirements under McKinney Vento, if a family meets these requirements, we look to see, how are they eligible for services who makes them eligible. So these are families that are sharing households through the economic hardship. These are families who may be living with families or friends or relatives because they can't stay somewhere else. These are families that's living in hotels, emergency shelters, shelters living in park buildings, and also those that's unaccompanied. So these are all the categories that the school district look at to determine if a family meets the criteria to receive the services under the law. If you know a family that falls under the criteria that we just discussed, if they're staying in a shelter, which many of you will come across, if you come across anyone else that may be out on the street or somewhere else, these families can be referred to Detroit public schools if they students attend Detroit Public Schools. Now we also have families that are not in school at all. If a family is homeless and they would like to apply to go to school, those families will also be referred to us by using this link. So here is a QR code that you can scan with your cell phone, and you can basically, you can fill it out, or the parent can even fill it out, or even the student can fill it out, where they can refer themselves to our office, there's a link at the top as well. We can share the screen so you can just hit on the link, and it will take them to ask just different questions about the student name, what's the situation that's going on if they want to enroll, we help support that enrollment process, the steps that it takes, you know, steps to take on a student face is facing, you know, homelessness or going through housing transition. These are all of the touch points that you as a stakeholder, anyone can have access to what DPS, CD is offering our students. So we have the school point of contact, which is in every building. Once you hit this link, it's going to pop up all 100, all 110 schools, and who that person is at those particular schools that can provide you with some assistance, or can help you, if you're referring to students. Also, we have the Detroit K 12 website, but you can go to OHC, Detroit. To K 12. You can email us if it comes directly to our team, our team responds to those. And then we also have our main number, which is 313-748-6383, this is like a this is like a voice type service, so you someone addresses those voicemails every day. They have to make calls back within 24 hours. But you can also utilize any of our access points, where I show you, in the next slide coming up, I already share with you our external link of how you can get connected with us. And then we also refer families that are experiencing homelessness on these shelter we always refer to them first to Cam. When the school district is closed, that means we are gone for the holidays. Maybe it's a snow day, all the entire district is closed. The only thing that remains open in Detroit Public Schools is our public safety department. So our families always have resources. They are still with our police department. So anyone can call 748, 6000 our police have been trained to, you know, support our families, identify a shelter so they could try to get them there. They will even transport the family to the shelter as well, or the student, and make sure they let us know as well. We also provide to the link, a link to all of the shelters that the families can go to. But again, we know that cam is always there the first choice for them. We have other access points of how do you get a touch with us, what services we offer, just in case you don't get everything here that's in this presentation with us, where you can find us in the needs assessment on the needs management map that is put out now we're on there for referrals and also how to get a hold of us. If you go to Detroit K twelve.org, our parents have a link where anyone can go to under the parent toolbox that takes you straight to the Office of homeless and foster care, and it also lists homeless resources. We also have a site where our students can also go to the hub, and they can also reach out for resources. This, again, is a link to our school point of contacts, who they are also in our DPS enrollment pack, if anyone needs an enrollment pack, if you go to our Detroit K twelve.org there's a tab that says enrollment. Enrollments can be done electronically, or it can also be written in a Cynthia and then also on that enrollment form, on page two, ask resident questions that can connect families to our office as well. And last but not least, you can find us on our family and community engagement form as well. Many people ask me, like, what happens once referral is submitted? This is basically our processes. What happened once a referral is submitted to us? You know, either internal, which is the DPS staff, and external, which is everyone else, the referrals are addressed within 24 to 48 hours, and this is always during non peak time, so we don't have, like, a huge rush, like usually the start of the year. We used to get so many referrals that sometimes it's difficult to do within 24 hours, but that's our goal throughout the year. But once a referral has been submitted by anyone, you will get a you will get a receipt saying that it's been submitted. And then our office make what we call a first and second attempt. We always reach out to the number that was provided. If we're unable to meet, reach out to them. We leave voicemails, and then if there's an email address provided, we also send them an email as well to contact us when we get so we can follow back up with them. So again, we do what is considered a first and second attempt. And then the next one is, I'm sorry you probably can't see because my two bars in the middle of this right here, but the next one is eligible. Families have transportation. We would basically set them up with an appointment where they could come pick up basic need items and make other appointments for other items that's within the district as well. Alright, so our school point of contact. Who are they and what they do? Pretty much their roles, excuse me, pretty much their roles is basically to help support us. Identify students. They look for the sign of students that may be experiencing homelessness. Their job is to also they have a targeted goal, because we know, based on income, that a minimum of 10% of our students are homeless. They notify the parents of their rights. They provide them with all type of assistance to help us in in this role,

we offer a plethora of resources and supplies for our families. So for example, we have several of our families. If you scan this QR code, it lists our we offer transportation to and from school after school, projects, anything that's related to school activities. We provide those services to our student, uniforms, hygiene kits, underwear, PPE, school supplies. We offer FAFSA verification letter for our unaccompanied youth who needs this letter so that they don't have the submit financial documentations when they apply for college. We also offer laundry service, but that's by appointment only. So we have washers and dryers where our families can come in and they can wash clothes and dry those clothes as well. The. This is just a sample of what our pantry look like, and some of the things that we offer. What you will see is, in one column, you see a ton of just underwear. We have coats, uniforms. We provide families with food, such as things that's microwavable or show flight or even things that can go in a refrigerator, even from laundry detergent. And also, we provide our families with shoes. We have a partnership with DSW. So a lot of our shoes that we have, our name brand, that we know a lot of our students like these, are other resources that we use. We have connections with our shelter list, connection with Cam, connection with our school point of contact, connection with our external link as well. And we also refer families outside of the food that we provide to our families. We refer them to Gleaners and forgotten harvest as well. This is just one stakeholder sheet that we usually share, and we share this also with our board members of our life, just what is McKinney Vento, the core protections, different tips and signs that you can look for when you trying to determine if a student need additional help, and then tips on how to support the student. All of that is here in this just brief graphic organizer and getting down to last but not least, we always accept donations coming from you know, partners organizations in order to help support our families in need, we accept donations money through Friday, from 9am to 3pm we do ask that these items are what we consider to be full size items, and what we have listed on the screen are some of the most common items that our families need the most, even while we get these requests, sometimes even when they're in The shelter, and also when our families are transitioning out of the shelter as well. If you need to contact anyone, our school district is broken up into what we call cohorts, so we have a representative from our office that support not only the families and in the school staff, but also any stakeholders. If they have any assistance, we have Miss Candice major, Nancy Cepeda and Theresa Prince. And these are the cohorts that they support, their direct line numbers to their tests and also their email addresses. If additional assistance is needed and you need some additional help, and then last but not least, again, we are the office of homeless and foster care. I am Michelle Parker. I am the liaison for the district homeless and foster care, and I collaborate with all school districts that's in the state of Michigan. We are located at 4701, McKinley, um, in Detroit. If you come to visit us, feel free to call we always do tours. If you want to come to a tour or get anything else, you can use door number one or 12 and again, feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I can take those and thank you for having me and letting me share this with me.

So I see one question Miss Parker from Tara says, What about charter schools.

What about the charter schools?

I can ask. I'm sorry, and I'm sorry. Might have mentioned this, but kids who are going to charter schools, are they eligible to connect with you or not? Because it's not a Detroit Public School, you'll

connect with their liaison. The charter schools, they have their own liaison, so you'll connect directly with them. You

able to provide that information about the who their liaison is. Yes. Okay, totally help. Thank you. Okay, so

so I'm not seeing any other questions at this time, but I'm seeing a lot of good comments too. So excellent presentation. Everybody enjoyed that information. So thank you so much, Miss Parker for presenting and kind of on a short, short notice, but I appreciate you making time for us, and I did mention it, but if you all don't know, Michelle Parker is a COC board member as well, so we do have that direct contact with her here. So again, thank you so much for that update. And

Erica, I will share if you want me to share that with you. Or Chelsea, I can share the PowerPoint with you all, if you all just want to put that out

there as well. Yes, please share it to me, please. Michelle. Chelsea Johnson,

all

right, not a problem.

I'll take it to Michelle. Thank you. All right, looks like Tori Henderson, put something in our chat for some a. Updates as well. Did you want to speak anything?

Yeah, I know we probably gotta move on to public comment. So just real quick, y'all, I did put some links in the chat. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email. I'll put that in the chat as well. But just trying to make some more universal links. So I have one on the can page for resources and resource sheets, so that'll be updated frequently. And then also the training website on the hand page. And then lastly, we have a opportunity for our Rh, psh clients and P, W, L, E, H, ambassadors for a new client training opportunity. So I also put that flyer in the chat as well.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Great information. MS, Gaines, I see your hand, yes.

Just a short announcement. I'll throw it into the chat as well. We are hiring for a COC coordinator position to assist with some of the logistics for the COC board meetings, general membership and other things regarding COC work here, as well as a performance and evaluation specialist. And so Amanda's not going anywhere, which is looking to make sure that she has some help as her role builds out. And so you can find, if you can if anyone who's interested, or knows anyone who's interested, I'm going to throw the email of where to send the resume to in the chat. It will be available on the hand website if it's not already, and so please be on the lookout for that as well. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, I'll take one more scan of the room and chat. Do we have any other announcements at this time? I

Okay, not hearing anything, we will move forward to public comment. Um, all right, so I'm not sure if we received any yet, but again, this will be our time to make a public comment, and only one public comment per person, and I feel like I'm doing Miss Harris job, so I'm gonna turn it right over to you. No problem. Good afternoon, everyone. We are open for public comments at this time, you can simply raise your hand, or you can message me in the chat and you can have your public comment. I did not receive any requests during the board meeting, so I will share that applause.

Hey, Marin, I do see your hand up, but I think that was maybe from before.

Thank you. It was from before. I'm sorry about that.

All right, I do not see any requests at this time for public comment, so I am going to call public comment for the April 7 board meeting and turn it back over to you. Miss George. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Harrison. Appreciate it. Alrighty. So with nothing else, thank you all so much for coming and being a part of our meeting and staying engaged. I encourage you all to continue on forward as we do this work and navigate through these times, and also to stay warm as I look out the window, it looks like it's smelling so gotta love Michigan weather, right? But we hope to see you all at our next meeting on Monday. Make this yes story, I know right. Oh, looks like we got a hand before I end out Miss price.

Um, there were some questions and stuff in the chat,

as I thought people were responding to some of them that I missed something so slides with Miss Parker. It looks like the job posting Link was shared. It's not on hands website yet. Presentation slides where we have access to the transcript with links the minutes will be shared. Did I miss anything else? No, okay, looks like we were all pretty caught up. All right, so thank you for those responding, and thank you Miss price for bringing that to my attention. All right, with hearing nothing else, no other questions, no other hands raised. All right, all righty, you all well. Thank you so much again, and we'll see you at the next meeting. Have a good one.

Thank you. Have a great day. Bye.