Housing and Community Development - Public Affairs

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Allyson Pearce
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Fairfax-Falls Church Community Partnership to Prevent and End Homelessness Newsletter

Partnership to Prevent and End Homelessness

MAY 2022

The Office to Prevent and End Homelessness – now part of the Fairfax County Department of Housing and Community Development – is committed to eliminating the disproportionality of people at-risk of or experiencing homelessness from communities of color and other marginalized populations by providing equitable paths to safe, stable, affordable housing.
 

Partnership Updates
PARTNERSHIP UPDATES

  • Expiring federal provisions that may impact homelessness: The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) developed a tool to identify the federal funding, flexibilities, and waivers linked to the public health emergency set to expire at various points in the federal fiscal year 2022 (ending September 30, 2022) that may impact homelessness prevention and intervention. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ultimately renewed the public health emergency that was set to expire April 16, 2022. The renewal means that the federal funding, flexibilities, and waivers with expiration dates directly tied to the public health emergency are still usable. When HHS does decide to end the COVID-19 emergency, which has been in place since January 2020, it has stated that it will provide 60 days’ notice.

  • Emergency Solutions Grants Program Under the CARES Act (ESG-CV) Extended: The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a new Notice (CDP-22-06) on April 18, 2022, regarding the ESG-CV funding. This Notice shifted the deadline for expending 100 percent of each ESG-CV grant to September 30, 2023; included a new waiver of housing stability case management limits; and new waivers and alternative requirements specifying how recaptured ESG-CV funds will be reallocated and made available for immediate use to prevent, prepare for, and respond to individuals and families who are homeless or are receiving homeless assistance.

  • HUD and USICH Equity Action Plans: HUD and USICH both released Equity Action Plans to address racial disparities and promote polices that advance equity in housing and homelessness.

    • HUD’s Equity Action Plan identifies a commitment to build on current equity work such as incorporating equity into the NOFO process, continuing the coordinated entry equity demonstration, and improving the collection of demographic data.

    • USICH’s Equity Action Plan aims to establish racial equity as a core part of the upcoming Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness; to engage tribal sovereign nations by developing an advisory group, holding facilitated convenings, and reestablishing our interagency working group on Native American homelessness; and to strengthen internal operations in order that USICH models the operational behavior we encourage communities and partners to exemplify in advancing racial equity

  • Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA): The reauthorization of VAWA was included in the fiscal year appropriations package approved by Congress. This measure 1) establishes a Gender-Based Violence Prevention Office within HUD; 2) protects the rights of survivors to report crime and emergencies from their homes without fear of punishment or eviction; 3) expands the current definition of homelessness to accurately reflect the experiences and realities of sexual assault survivors, provides for VAWA housing related training and technical assistance; and 4) creates a review process of covered housing providers’ compliance with VAWA to improve implementation of the Act’s existing protections. The current reauthorization will be in effect until 2027.
     
  • Continuum of Care (CoC) Committee: The CoC Committee, the governance of the CoC, met on April 13, at 2:00 p.m., in conference room 232 at the Fairfax County Government Center. Meeting materials can be found at www.fairfaxcounty.gov/homeless/coccommittee.

Training Opportunities
Training Opportunities

  • Harm Reduction & Providing Low Barrier Homeless Services
    May 3, 2022
    10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

    This training will focus on Harm Reduction Homeless Services, including providing an overview of harm reduction history and principles, harm reduction myths, what it means to be low barrier, applying harm reduction in various settings, as well as empathy fatigue and self-care.

  • Serving Communities through Housing Counseling Virtual Conference
    May 10-11, 2022
    HUD’s Offices of Housing Counseling (OHC), Community Planning and Development (CPD), and Field Policy and Management (FPM) will be sponsoring a virtual conference for housing counselors and CPD grantees. Conference goals include: understand how CPD programs work and leverage the expertise of FPM in creating state and local linkages, learn about the various programs within CPD from community development to affordable housing to disaster recovery, including programs that support homeless and special needs populations, discover how collaborating between housing counseling agencies and CPD grantees can best serve clients, and understand the qualities of a successful partnership between CPD programs and housing counseling programs.

  • Trauma Awareness 101
    May 17, 2022
    10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

    This training will increase attendees’ professional capacity to understand and address clients and others that have experienced traumatic experiences.  All CoC partners, especially front line and support staff team members who work directly with the public and clients, will benefit from attending this training.

  • Domestic Violence 101
    May 24, 2022
    10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

    This training will provide an overview of the dynamics of domestic violence, how to recognize the different ways violence can manifest, understand barriers to leaving abusive relationships, how to support someone in a violent relationship, and how to help individuals create a safety plan.

  • Hoarding Part 1: Identifying, Assessing and Addressing
    May 24, 2022
    10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

    In this training, participants will gain a better understanding of Hoarding Disorder as a mental health issue, learn how to use empathy and empowerment within their roles to help engage the individual and other team members in a compassionate and effective resolution process, and learn to use and implement objective tools, skills, and strategies to develop effective multidisciplinary collaborative plans to resolve hoarding cases.

  • Hoarding Part 2: Collaborative Community Approaches
    May 31, 2022
    10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

    In this training, participants will learn the rationale and objectives of the community collaborative approach to hoarding, will be introduced to collaborative community options that include Steering Committees, Hoarding Task Forces, Regional Task Force sub-committees, Agency Partnerships and Regional Response Teams, will learn how to identify Community/Team Partners, and will learn how to establish uniform protocols and facilitate effective teamwork that includes communication, setting and meeting goals and objectives, monitoring and measuring progress and reducing recidivism.  

  • National Mental Health Awareness Month Webinar Series
    The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) are teaming up to present a series of webinars to celebrate National Mental Health Awareness Month! The webinars will take place each Wednesday in May from 1:00–2:00pm (ET) and will feature leading mental health and housing professionals from SAMHSA and HUD, as well as practitioners from their respective communities. The target audience for these webinars is HUD staff, HUD grantees, partners, and stakeholders, as well as HUD residents.

    1. Mental Health 101 – Overview of Mental Health Issues in the Modern World
      Access Code: 4670871#
      May 4, 2022
      SAMHSA and HUD will kick off their celebration of National Mental Health Awareness Month with an introduction and general overview of mental health issues post COVID-19. This first webinar of a 4-part series will feature speakers from SAMHSA and HUD, as well as HUD mental health practitioners.

    2. 988 is Not a Joke – National Suicide Prevention Hotline Launch
      Access Code: 8477433#
      May 11, 2022

      SAMHSA and HUD will introduce SAMHSA’s new Suicide Prevention Hotline (988). The webinar will also address suicide prevention for youth and the BIPOC community, in addition to touching on substance use.

    3. Get Help – Reducing Stigma Associated with Mental Health
      Access Code: 5955873#
      May 18, 2022

      SAMHSA and HUD will focus on reducing stigma associated with mental health, to encourage those with potential mental health issues to seek professional help. This webinar will also concentrate on the BIPOC community, addressing stigma specific to these populations.

    4. Now What? – Mental Health Issues in Post-COVID America
      Access Code: 6268721#
      May 25, 2022
      SAMHSA and HUD will examine how to address mental health issues in post-COVID America. Besides the physical toll the pandemic took on Americans, it has also greatly affected our nation’s mental health. This webinar will discuss how to handle and move past multiple co-occurring pandemics, using a mental health focus on substance use disorder, housing, work, education, and transportation among other relevant topics.

  • Leadership Series:
    S.L. Young, the founder of Beyond SPRH, LLC, will be facilitating several trainings focused on leadership.

    1. Session 1: Ensuring Effective Communication
      May 18, 2022
      12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

      Attendees will define communication, identify communication challenges, understand the reasons for communication, distinguish between “hearing” versus “listening,” review communication strategies, detail essential elements of effective communication, identify communication obstacles, define “active listening,” define “predatory listening,” and review the components of effective communication.  

    2. Session 2: Ethics, It’s a Matter of Choice
      May 25, 2022
      12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

      Attendees will define ethical and unethical behavior, identify types of unethical behavior, identify the challenges related to working with an unethical individual, the impact of unethical activities on an organization, and strategies to minimize unethical behavior, understand the opportunity costs of reporting unethical behavior, and detail methods that organizations can use to protect individuals who report unethical behavior.

    3. Session 3: Leadership, It’s More than Managing Tasks
      June 1, 2022
      12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

      Attendees will define leadership, identify leadership challenges and obstacles, review the components of effective leadership, discuss the differences between managing and leading, identify different leadership styles, define strategic planning, discuss the components of developing a strategic plan.

    4. Session 4: Developing an Inclusive Work Environment
      June 8, 2022
      12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

      Attendees will define diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), identify the reasons that DEI is important and its benefits, discuss challenges that exist whenever DEI is not present, identify the impacts of discrimination, harassment, or microaggressions on individual and organizational performance, review methods to develop and maintain a DEI environment, identify strategies to ensure DEI compliance.

Fairfax Virtual Assistant