Committee on Housing - November 18, 2013 - Meeting Minutes

Justice & Courage Housing Subcommittee Minutes

November 18, 2013         9:30 am – 11:00 am

Department on the Status of Women, 25 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 240, San Francisco, CA

Present: Maria Bee, Becki Hively, Minouche Kandel, Elizabeth Kirton, MiYoung Kleine, Irina Naduhovskaya, Karlo Ng, Lindsay Sweetnam, Jill Zawisza.  

Notes taken by Jill Zawisza.

Update on Justice and Courage (J&C) Transition:

Minouche offered an update on the recent J&C transition, as well a brief synopsis of the committee’s history. Since 2002, J&C has made many recommendations on how our systems can collaborate and be streamlined in order to better serve survivors of domestic violence. Many of these key recommendations have been implemented, and the J&C Committee will be wrapping up.

Our subcommittee work, however, will continue—either as a function of the FVC or under the umbrella of DOSW. More updates to come on this process.

Review of Meeting with SFHA & Follow Up

We had a wonderful meeting with the SFHA, and the Executive team representing the HA were in favor of our numerous ideas and thoughts on how to work more effectively together.

1. Training: We will provide 2, half day trainings of about 55 participants per group. The intent is to prepare SFHA staff to work more effectively with survivors of DV.
   
   1. A smaller work group was created to establish a curriculum. We will review past training materials and gather input from SFHA staff.
   2. Potential topics include: DV 101, legal issues, supporting survivors
   3. Work Group Members: Minouche, Lindsay, Karlo and Jill.
2. DV Referrals on Back of Transfer Application: Form will be reformatted; AWS and Riley Center will be added. All shelters will share the same headline. Other referrals will stay the same.
3. Maintaining Eligibility for Transfer After Vacating a Unit due to DV: Although they were open to the idea, there were no real tangible options at the time of our meeting. Karlo will shop this idea around with her peers and come back to the group with any ideas or best practices that arise.
4. Opening Voucher Waitlist for Approved Emergency Transfers: There are some examples of other cities successfully implementing this practice. Our group will submit comments on the admin plan in conjunction with their timeline (in the Spring).
5. VAWA 2013 Requirements: We will form a legal work group and submit comments on the admin plan in conjunction with their timeline (Spring).
6. Section 8 Vouchers (same as e).
7. Domestic Violence Liaison at the SFHA: The executive team was open to this position, but made it clear there was no existing budget for such a position. We will try and get money from the city for the position. In the meantime, our group reviewed an existing job description and found a few items to change (see Minouche’s notes) but also shared concerns surrounding the workload falling on one person.  Group agreed that it would be isolating for one person to have this position, and ideally it would be two full time people or one position split between two people.  Jill will connect with Linda Martin to get a sense of the potential workload (hours per week).
8. Interjurisdictional Transfers: Velma, staff at SFHA, has worked at HUD and at a HA. She said that HUD said it was permissible to have these transfers, and in her experience, this practice worked. Barbara will bring this up at the next meeting with other HA Executive Directors (December), and Velma said she would contact cities she thought would be most open to the idea. We will keep this on our agenda.

Local Homeless Coordinating Board (LHCB)

Lindsay had sent out materials on LHCB Coordinated Assessment Committee and was hoping the group would be a part of this work. Both Becki and Elizabeth have taken part in these meetings in the past.

DV does not seem to be a priority for this work and as the group has welcomed our comments, we would like to provide the following:

·         Helping craft a DV screening question

·         Consider if/how to screen out couples with active DV

·         Adding language in the priority section that helps assess and prioritize survivor safety

By December 10^th, Lindsay, Jill, Elizabeth & Becki will:

• review the strategic plan and have input gathered
• review and provide feedback for procedures (although they may not be as open to feedback on this portion of their work)

Upcoming Meetings:

Justice and Courage Housing Subcommittee Meeting: January 9, 9:30am @DOSW, 25 Van Ness, Suite 240, San Francisco

Meeting with SFHA: January 14^th, 1:00p @440 Turk St., San Francisco