Housing and Homeless Services

This training dives deep into the key elements of housing-focused sheltering, low-barrier services, and meaningful  engagement with program participants, through the lens of someone who has worked on the frontline for years. To view training document, click here.

Best practices are a set of counseling styles, approaches and working strategies where people working with people  experiencing homelessness engage in motivational interviewing, trauma informed care and implement a hard reduction strategy. 

Housing First is an approach where people experiencing homelessness are provided immediate access to housing and then offered the supportive services that may be needed to foster long-term stability and prevent a return to homelessness. This approach removes unnecessary barriers and assumes that supportive services are more effective in addressing needs when the individual or family is housed – when the daily stress of being homeless is taken out of the equation.

Coordinated Entry is a community wide process meaning no agency has control, and no one agency is left to face the problem alone. To implement Coordinated Entry the Northern Nevada CoC will be utilizing a standardized assessment called the Community Housing Assessment Tool (CHAT). Multiple agencies will be assessing clients using the CHAT creating multiple entry points for access to housing. The CHAT assessment utilizes the federal Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), a database widely used in the Northern Nevada CoC, and through the HMIS system it creates a prioritized Community Housing List. The Community Housing List (Queue) will then be used as the community waiting list for housing – creating fair and equal access.

Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) is a local information technology system used to collect client-level data and data on the provision of housing and services to homeless individuals and families and persons at risk of homelessness. The Northern Nevada Continuum of Care (CoC) utilizes HMIS software that complies with HUD's data collection, management, and reporting standards. This training overviews new policies and procedures to de-identify profiles in HMIS. To view training document, click here. 

To view training document click here.

This webinar provides an overview of diversion, the best diversion practices, and how communities are implementing diversion to ensure that new federal COVID-19 homelessness resources are most effectively and efficiently targeted. 

Resources

• Webinar Takeaways (PDF)
• PowerPoint Presentation
• 6 Steps to a Problem-Solving Conversation Infographic
• The Impact of Homelessness Prevention Programs on Homelessness (Chicago Study referenced in the webinar)