HUD’s Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs (SNAPS) invites Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) recipients, homeless assistance providers, and their partners to participate in a 90 minute webinar on Wednesday, June 10, 2020 from 3:30-5:00 PM EDT to discuss how to most effectively and efficiently target homeless prevention resources during COVID-19. This will be especially important as ESG recipients consider the best uses of their CARES Act funding.

By the end of the webinar listeners will:

• Know the elements of a successful prevention strategy and how it supports an overall rehousing strategy
• Understand the approaches to targeting prevention for maximum effectiveness and efficiency
• Understand a coordinated investment planning approach with concrete examples of planning for targeted prevention
• Have the tools to make concrete decisions about the role and scale of targeted prevention efforts

Participants do not need to register in advance. It is strongly recommended that you join this webinar 15 minutes prior to the start time (3:15 PM EDT). To join the webinar, simply access the login page at the link below.

Join the Targeting Homeless Prevention in the Midst of COVID-19 Webinar.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the Office Hours or encounter difficulties joining the session, please contact Natalie_Matthews@abtassoc.com.

Visit the SNAPS Disease Risks and Homelessness page for a full list of COVID-19 infectious disease prevention and response resources.

COVID-19 Planning and Response Webinar

Operating Isolation and Quarantine Facilities and Providing Medical, Behavioral Health, and Substance Use Treatment:

Lessons Learned from King County

Featuring:

Julie Dombrowski, MD, MPH

Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Washington

Deputy Director, Public Health, Seattle & King County HIV/STD Program

I/Q Medical Lead

Josephine Wong

Deputy Director, King County Department of Community & Human Services

I/Q Operations Lead

Kelli Nomura

Director, DCHS Behavioral Health and Recovery Division

I/Q Behavioral Health Lead

May 12, 2020

2:00 – 3:30 PM ET

Register

If you have trouble accessing the webinar due to overwhelming demand, please know that we will send the recording to all registrants and post it on www.usich.gov/covid-19 by the end of the day on May 12.

Upcoming COVID-19 Webinars

The Alliance’s ongoing COVID-19 Webinar series continues next week, outlining tools, guidance, and strategies on responding to COVID-19 within homeless systems. 
 

View past webinars and materials here >>>

Check out the topics and speakers, and register now:

COVID-19 Webinar Series: Making Housing Happen In Difficult Times
Tuesday, May 12th, 3:00 pm ET
System leaders and providers from communities around the country that are continuing to implement effective, systemic permanent housing responses to homelessness. This webinar will discuss coordinated entry and creative housing options that take into account the additional vulnerability of COVID-19.

COVID-19 Webinar Series: Helping Survivors of Domestic Violence and Trafficking Stay Safe During the Pandemic
Thursday, May 14th, 3:00pm ET
National experts will be joined by frontline service providers to explore immediate and short-term strategies to help endangered and unsheltered survivors, including improving shelter conditions, ramping up permanent housing connections and stabilization, and implementing prevention and diversion.

COVID-19 Webinar Series: Focusing on People Who Are Unsheltered
Tuesday, May 5th, 3:00 pm ET

This webinar will focus on making unsheltered homelessness an immediate priority during the pandemic, including by increasing street outreach and health services and getting unsheltered people into both shelter and housing as quickly as possible.
 

COVID-19 Webinar Series: COVID-19 and Data Collection Resources for Your Community
Tuesday, April 21st — 3:00 pm ET 
The data your system gathers during COVID-19 is important: it can support public health planning, inform need-based public and private funding, and contribute to research on best practices around this type of crisis.

This webinar will provide information related to HMIS data collection, privacy concerns, mobile data collection, as well as research and population sampling to determine the degree to which COVID-19 has impacted the homeless community.  Experts in these areas will provide important information and share tools that will help your data collection efforts in the field.

Speakers:
Joy Moses, Director, Homelessness Research Institute, National Alliance to End Homelessness
Fran Ledger, US Department of Housing and Urban Development
Matt Simmonds, Simtech Solutions
Dr. Dan Treglia, University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice

COVID-19 Webinar Series: Federal Funding to Address Homelessness and COVID-19: Ask the Experts
Thursday, April 23rd — 3:00 pm ET
The CARES Act provided important new financial resources for addressing homelessness, both through grants to communities’ homelessness systems and through direct payments to most low-income individuals and families. This webinar will provide details about what new money is available and how to access it. It will also update listeners on the prospects for additional resources in upcoming legislation.

Speaker:
Steve Berg, Vice President for Programs and Policy, National Alliance to End Homelessness
Roxy Caines, EITC Campaign Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The Rapid Re-Housing Goals and Outcomes Report has been posted!

Click here to see the report.

FEMA will be hosting  a 1-hour training will help participants understand how to properly contract during emergency or exigent circumstances when using federal funds. All FEMA grant programs are subject to the Federal procurement standards found at 2 C.F.R. §§ 200.317 – 200.326. FEMA requests that you send the attached announcement to subrecipients as soon as possible. Along with the attachment below are the details of the training with the training schedule.

Target Audience:

State, local, and tribal emergency management personnel, houses of worship, and private nonprofit entities; Public Assistance applicants

Topics include:

Sole sourcing under Emergency or Exigency (E&E); additional procurement under grant requirements under E&E; use of pre-existing contracts during E&E

Training dates and access information are provided below:

FEMA Region 9 (AZ, CA, HI, NV, Pacific Islands) Training Schedule:

COVID-19 Public Assistance Team

Regional Resonse Coordination Center | Region IX

fema-r9-pa-covid19@fema.dhs.gov

Federal Emergency Management Agency
fema.gov

Starting this week, Alliance staff and other experts will be discussing various tools, guidance, and strategies relating to how providers and homelessness system leaders can respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Please use #COVIDwebinar during the webinars if joining the conversation on Twitter. View descriptions and register for webinars at the links below: 

COVID-19 Webinar Series: Understanding & Planning for Federal Funding
Wednesday, April 1 – 3:00 pm ET
Steve Berg (Vice President for Programs and Policy)
Kristi Schulenberg (Director, Center for Capacity Building)
  This webinar will provide an overview of the federal stimulus funding to address the novel corona virus pandemic among people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The webinar will also provide a framework for how communities and homeless system leaders can plan and strategize to ensure efficient and effective implementation of local, state, and federal funds to achieve maximum benefit to reduce infection, negative health outcomes, and homelessness.

COVID-19 Webinar Series: Protocols for Addressing Sheltered and Unsheltered Homelessness
Thursday, April 2 – 3:30 pm ET
Cynthia Nagendra, Executive Director, UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative
Margot Kushel, MD, Director, UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations
Vivian Wan, Abode Services, San Francisco

Homeless system providers and health systems are developing local COVID-19 approaches for people experiencing homelessness that are consistent with emerging guidance from the CDC, and informed by the experience of people on the ground working hard to keep clients and staff as safe as possible.

This webinar will present the guidance developed by the State of California with the University of California San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, and protocols being used by Abode Services in the San Francisco Bay Area. Guidance and protocols will include suggestions for shelter and emergency housing providers, outreach workers, and coordinating public health systems for how to reduce risk for the most vulnerable in unsheltered and congregate settings.

COVID-19 Webinar Series: Serving and Supporting Unsheltered People During COVID-19
Tuesday, April 7, 2020 – 3:00-4:00pm ET
Iain De Jong, OrgCode Consulting, Inc

This webinar will be facilitated by Iain De Jong of OrgCode Consulting, Inc. and will examine the following: a rationale for why and under which conditions street outreach should continue at this time; examining and re-configuring the workflow for responding to unsheltered homelessness; engagement precautions and considerations; supporting and responding to encampments; prioritizing who to see; harm reduction considerations; responding to food insecurity; and protocols for encountering ill or deceased unsheltered persons.

This webinar will be a reprise of the webinar Iain De Jong provided for the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, with some slight modifications.

COVID-19 Webinar Series: Working with FEMA to Address Homelessness During the Pandemic
Thursday, April 9, 2020 – 3:00-4:00pm ET
Partner webinar with the National Low Income Housing Coalition

The Alliance is partnering with speakers from the National Low Income Housing Coalition to provide a webinar on working with FEMA to address homelessness during the coronavirus pandemic. 

COVID-19 Webinar Series: Supporting People Remotely in Housing Programs During COVID-19
Thursday, April 16 – 3:00 – 3:30 pm ET
Iain DeJong, OrgCode Consulting, Inc. 

This webinar will be facilitated by Iain De Jong of OrgCode Consulting, Inc. and will highlight a number of considerations for staff that work in Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) and Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) programs to support people remotely during the coronavirus pandemic.

Topics to be covered in the webinar include: staff wellness; communicating with program participants; considerations for prioritizing time and who to serve; staying connected; supporting financial matters; supporting harm reduction; addressing food security; changing support plans; assisting with crisis planning; and supporting landlords. This webinar is a condensed version of the original 90-minute webinar topic provided by OrgCode on March 31.

COVID-19 Resource Highlights

Fact Sheet: 
Population At-Risk – Homelessness and the COVID-19 Crisis

Report:
Estimated Emergency and Observational/Quarantine Bed Need for the US Homeless Population Related to COVID-19 Exposure by County; Projected Hospitalizations, Intensive Care Units and Mortality

Resources:
Coronavirus and Homelessness

Homelessness & COVID-19: Considerations and Action Steps

Community Survey: Protecting People Experiencing Homelessness from COVID-19

Using Medicaid Waivers to Improve Access to Care for People Experiencing Homelessness During COVID-19