Many groups working together for one common goal - affordable housing
PAST PROJECTS
Michigan Ability Partners (MAP) provided supportive services to single adults residing in their Whispering Creek Apartments.
The individuals living at Whispering Creek were selected by MAP because they have a disability, an extremely low income (generally below 15% of Area Median Income), and have been chronically homeless. They are referred from the area shelters and from MAP’s wait list. This population is very vulnerable to becoming homeless again without the supportive services. Both the desired outcome and the measurement of success will be the ability to provide the supportive services needed to keep these 5 individuals housed. ($25,000)
Avalon Housing, for its part in Frequent Users System Engagement (FUSE), which provided intensive case management and rent subsidies to the 100 homeless and medically fragile individuals in Washtenaw County who have used the emergency health care system most frequently in the past year.
This FUSE project was a national grant received by Catholic Social Services (CSS) which required matching funds from all the agencies involved. Case managers coordinated services to 100 individuals across 15 different agencies. Avalon provided support service to the 100 frequent users and helped with property management activities for the 15 Avalon tenants as well as engaging, training and consulting with private landlords around the other 85 individuals who were served. The goals of the FUSE project were to (1) provide housing and support for 100 homeless frequent users of emergency health services within the next two year, (2) create cross-system partnerships to improve health delivery for patients with complex medical and psycho social needs, (3) improve health outcomes for frequent users, and (4) reduce health care costs associated with frequent users for public and private health insurance plans, hospitals and ambulance agencies. An independent team of evaluators from New York University will be evaluating the data from this project and the three other FUSE projects happening in the United States. Another locally anticipated outcome is the broadening of availability of permanent supportive housing in our county by significantly increasing the involvement of mainstream for-profit landlords. ($50,000)
The Washtenaw Prisoner Re-entry project provided supportive services to those individuals coming out of incarceration with the highest risk of recidivism.
A member of the WPR Resource Team conducted a pre-screen to see which homeless returning citizens needed more than the usual Housing Support Services (HSS).The desirable outcome is for returning citizens to move from WPR transitional housing into either their own permanent housing unit or back home with families after demonstrating improved behavior. Either of these is considered positive discharge into permanent housing. There will be an evaluation by WPR that will measures discharge outcomes after adding HSS to its array of services. It predicts, based on its preliminary data, that there will be a significant improvement in both discharge and 6-month post-discharge outcomes. ($25,000)
