Ten-Year Plan

The County hired a consultant – Herb Marlowe (Pinellas County Homeless Initiative Project) – to study the issue of homelessness through a 10-month research process. Much of the research and deliverables that the consultant provided was utilized and incorporated in the development of the 10-year plan.

Three primary elements of the Policy Group’s work plan were:

• Analysis of needs, preferred service models, governance approaches and funding options (Pinellas County Homeless Initiative Project);
• Development of ten-year strategic plan; and
• Generation of community support for the plan.

In March 2006, following the completion of the ten-year plan, the Homeless Policy Group was organized into the Homeless Leadership Network.

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Opening Doors to Opportunity: A 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness in Pinellas County

(The following are excerpts from the “Message from the Homeless Policy Group,” which was the preamble to this planning document adopted January 13, 2006.)

Pinellas County is experiencing prosperous times, with strong business and residential development, low unemployment, and strengthened education and cultural programs. At the same time, the number of individuals in our community who are homeless or on the verge of becoming homelessness continues to rise. Although our community has done a great deal to serve our homeless population, we have not succeeded in alleviating this problem in our community. It will be increasingly difficult for us to serve a growing homeless population; the logical solution, therefore, is to stop this growth and to bring an end to homelessness in our community.

Elected officials and community leaders throughout Pinellas County share a commitment to improving the quality of life for all of our citizens, and we have adopted a vision that no one in Pinellas County should be homeless. To move this vision toward a plan of ending homelessness in Pinellas County, elected officials and community leaders came together to draft this plan. With a county government and local governments for 24 municipalities, collaborative planning efforts across government lines are a challenge. The planning effort developed to address this problem has been a strong and unique approach that underscores the importance of this issue and the commitment of the parties involved. This process and plan are also serving as a catalyst to develop ongoing groups to look at related issues in the areas of affordable housing, behavioral and physical health care, and basic needs.

It’s time for us to have a unified vision and a call to action for our community to work together to end homelessness. This document sets forth that vision and lays the groundwork for action plans that will make a difference in the immediate future.

This plan was the result of an 18-month research and planning process. Several factors were at the forefront of our research and planning discussions including the following:

• improving the quality of life for homeless individuals and families and those at risk of becoming homeless,
• eliminating barriers to housing and services,
• finding ethical and economical solutions,
• developing unified and comprehensive efforts that demonstrate best practices in housing and service delivery, and
• being able to demonstrate returns for our forthcoming investments.

As a result of our work on this plan, the face of homelessness has changed in all of our minds, and we hope to change the face of homelessness for all citizens in Pinellas County. We need our community and its leaders to overcome the stereotypes that sometimes prevent us from reaching solutions to help these individuals and families who are facing the greatest hardship. We hope this plan and our demonstrated commitment to work together to develop and enact this plan provide motivation for others to get involved and support this effort.

We look forward to seeing these strategies become a reality and to saying that this plan and our work as the Homeless Policy Group made a difference in helping to end homelessness in Pinellas County.
 

The knowledge and skills to end homelessness exist. What’s needed now is the commitment of resources and the political will to make it happen. The initiatives outlined in this plan establish strategies and strong accountability standards for all community partners working to end homelessness in Pinellas County. Many of these strategies target chronic homelessness, in an effort to break the repetitive cycle that keeps people on the streets and depleting resources that are greatly needed to help others escape bouts of homelessness.

This plan focuses on new efforts that must be enacted in order for the full system of care to be strengthened and to be truly effective to end homelessness in Pinellas County in the next ten years. Priority (or key) initiatives have been identified, around which our local governments and community leadership have made a commitment to achieve. These have been identified by the Homeless Policy Group as the strategies that will have the greatest chance, early in the plan implementation, to open doors to opportunities to help end homelessness in Pinellas County.

The following is a list of the key initiatives, goals and priority strategies:

System Oversight & Evaluation
Goal: Establish a system for plan implementation, oversight, funding administration and evaluation that involves all partners in the plan to end homelessness.
 
Priority Strategies:
 
- Provide long-term funding to support an executive director for PCCH
- Obtain involvement and support from local governments and funders
- Work with the Health & Human Services Coordinating Council and local governments to monitor and support efforts to generate new funding sources for services and attainable housing
- Develop a seamless system of funding support, among funders, businesses, foundations and mainstream resources
- Ensure revenue maximization by bringing into our community all funds that are available to us
 
 
Coordination & Partnership 
Goal: Strengthen coordination, collaboration and innovation among community partners to remove barriers, break the cycle of homelessness, prevent future homelessness and, ultimately, end homelessness in Pinellas County.
 
Priority Strategies:
 
- Develop a “navigator model” that can be easily integrated into existing programs
- Incorporate a system for universal intake, assessment and referral with centralized technology and data systems, such as through the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS)
- Use ACT Teams and provision of aftercare, especially for chronically homeless persons
- Support and expand the capacity of existing one-stop centers and add new centers to areas that do not currently have one
- Engage in legislative advocacy to remove and/or prevent regulations and barriers that worsen our homeless problem
- Advocate/lobby to prevent laws or ordinances that criminalize homelessness
- Allocate more resources for bus passes and tokens
- Coordinate a specialized transportation network for the homeless system of care
- Involve businesses to assist providers in developing entrepreneurial endeavors to generate funds for their programs
 
Continuum of Services (Prevention, Outreach & Intake, and Shelter & Housing)
Prevention Goal: Prevent homelessness through comprehensive strategies including education, support and early intervention, and emphasize permanent solutions to homelessness through increased income and access to mainstream resources.
 
Priority Strategies for Prevention:
 
- Increase all funding sources and allocations for rental and utility deposit and emergency payment assistance, and mortgage payment assistance
- Expand the County financial assistance program to provide rental assistance to employable persons and increase the dollar amount of rent vouchers
- Develop opportunities for intervention to people at risk of homelessness within businesses that provide essential services, such as utility companies throughout various systems that serve people in need, such as within utility companies
- Implement coordinated discharge planning protocols that will enable discharge planners in hospitals, jails and other institutions to place their homeless clients into appropriate housing
- Increase economic opportunity for homeless citizens through increased training opportunities, incentives for employers, and by providing full array of employment-related support services
- Develop a comprehensive, coordinated outreach program that will include intensive outreach to homeless citizens living in the streets, woods and other public places. 
Outreach & Intake Goal: Develop a comprehensive, coordinated outreach program that will include intensive outreach to homeless citizens living in the streets, woods and other public places.
 
Priority Strategies for Outreach & Intake:
 
- Create a model and work plan for the deployment of street outreach teams (SOTs) 
Shelter & Housing Goal: Ensure that adequate levels and types of shelter and housing are available, with an emphasis on attainable housing as a first choice.
 
Priority Strategies for Shelter & Housing:
 
Housing First:
- Provide support for the development of Safe Havens in targeted locations in the county 
- Simplify the regulatory and development processes to increase the supply of attainable housing, particularly the SRO type 
- Build SROs to assist with the “Housing First” model
 
 
Housing First:
- Enact regulations for new housing and rental developments that will support the creation/set-aside of attainable housing 
- Support mobile home park legislation that provides more protection for residents being displaced due to redevelopment 
- Work directly with owners of units with expiring Project-Based Section 8 agreements to keep units attainable 
- Require attainable rental property developments that have funds invested by local government(s) to enact Land Use Restriction Agreements that maintains its affordability for a minimum of 30 years
 
Service-Enriched Shelter:
- Develop an inebriate receiving center for north county 
- Create additional transitional and permanent supportive housing
- Develop/expand shelter/housing for persons being released from jail 
- Create overnight shelter beds for chronic and street homeless persons 
 
  

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From March 2006 through September 2007, representing the first year and a half of the implementation of our Ten-Year Plan, the following accomplishments have been cited:

1. The Interlocal agreement to establish the Homeless Leadership Network (HLN) and the adoption of the 10-Year Plan was approved by Pinellas County, 6 cities, Pinellas County School Board, Juvenile Welfare Board, and many others.

2.Street outreach teams for St. Petersburg, Pinellas Park, and Lealman became operational for the past 5-16 months, citing increases in the number of chronically homeless individuals getting off the street and decreasing their time spent on the street.

3.Forty-nine (49) new overnight shelter beds were opened in St. Petersburg and Clearwater.

4.The CEOs of area Homeless Service Providers meet quarterly to address issues and make recommendations.

5.Pinellas County and four cities provided funding to support staff and operational costs of the PCCH and HLN.

6.PCCH operated an overnight shelter for thirty nights at Northwest Presbyterian Church in March 2007.

7. New local funding for homeless and homeless prevention programs was secured for 2007:
 
$10,000,000 for the Pinellas County Affordable Housing Trust Fund
$600,000 (County) for 3 Street Outreach Teams
$ 142,000 (County) for 3 System Navigators/Case Managers
$6.58 million (County) for rental assistance at higher rate ($550/mo), increase of $2.7 million
$218,000 (County) for prevention rental assistance for those at risk
$125,000 (County) for homeless jail diversion project (Public Defender’s Office and County Sheriff)
$578,000 (County) for CDBG funds for homeless emergency, building, and support services
$100,000 (St. Petersburg) for additional homeless services
Pinellas Park and County Sheriff are funding police portion of street outreach teams
Secured bulk purchase discounts on bus passes
In spite of serious cuts in County funding, we maintained most of the 2007 local funding for 2008, including all County homeless, prevention funding; reduction in Affordable Housing Trust Fund
 
8. Established a functioning Tampa Bay Information Network with substantial consumer and bed information

9.Conducted two medical camps; co-coordinated Project Homeless Connect in September 2007, which served over 900 people

10. Participating planning for the establishment of congregation-based overnight shelters

11. Substantial planning done for a Homeless Service Center as the entry to Housing First plus initial shelter

12. Increased public awareness of the true nature of homelessness in Pinellas County by making 40 formal presentations and serving as the “go-to experts” on homeless issues for the media.

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