The News & Observer BY JOSH SHAFFER AND SARAH OVASKA - Staff Writers RALEIGH -- In its time, the Water Garden stood as a shrine to modern design: a complex of low-slung, hill-hugging offices surrounded by tall, ivy-covered pine trees and ponds topped with lily pads. You'd never guess from the car dealerships and furniture warehouses that such a gem stood hidden off Glenwood Avenue. And for the last three years, the complex has slowly rotted and gathered ...

by Bruce Mildwurf and Gerald Owens WRAL.com August 24, 2010 Raleigh, N.C. - The state Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday that it would move most operations from Dorothea Dix Hospital to other facilities by the end of the year to save money. State lawmakers didn't include any money for Dix operations in the 2010-11 budget, DHHS Secretary Lanier Cansler said, so the department had to find ways to cut $28 million in operating ...

The Duke AHEC Program, in collaboration with the Sandhills Local Management Entity, has developed an ongoing continuing medical series to address important psychiatric management issues encountered in community mental health settings. The current series is targeted toward psychiatrists and other providers working with seriously mentally ill adults and child in underserved regions of the State. At the completion of this training, the participant will: Increase the ...

To build bridges between local community resources and military families, Congress established the National Demonstration Program for Citizen-Soldier Support. Spearheaded by the Odum Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Citizen-Soldier Support Program (CSSP) focuses on all branches of the military and other reserve component members and families. While it may be assumed that any post deployment mental health problems of service members and veterans ...

On July 12-14, 2010, the National Alliance to End Homelessness held its annual conference in Washington, DC. Presentations and handouts from the conference are available on the NAEH website.

This paper from the National Alliance to End Homelessness provides an overview of family homelessness in the United States. It examines the key strategies that communities are implementing to respond to increased family housing instability and homelessness. It also discusses the need for federal leadership. In the years since the Alliance profiled six communities that reduced family homelessness in Promising Strategies to End Family Homelessness (2006), more communities have ...

From Staff Reports RALEIGH -- With as many as 85 homeless families on a waiting list for shelter in Wake County, county commissioners took a new Salvation Army facility for "fragile families" a step closer to reality Monday. Commissioners agreed unanimously to provide $500,000 in federal community development block grant money to the $4 million redevelopment of a 40,000-square-foot building inside the Beltline on Capital Boulevard. The charity operates a homeless ...

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) focuses on TANF and HPRP resources in a paper examining how local communities are using short-term benefits and HPRP resources to prevent evictions and re-house families. Read the paper here or download it from the CBPP website at www.cbpp.org/files/7-13-10tanf.pdf.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and its Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) provide Evidence-Based Practice KITs (Knowledge Informing Transformation) to promote the use of evidence-based practices in mental health. The KITs were developed as one of several SAMHSA/CMHS activities critical to its science-to-services strategy. SAMHSA has developed a new toolkit for Permanent Supportive Housing, which was informed by numerous organizations ...

On July 14, 2010, NCCEH staff and North Carolina conference attendants met with Congressional representatives in Washington, D.C., during the National Alliance to End Homelessness conference. Please click the links below to download the materials that were shared with our elected representatives. North Carolina Information: Continuum of Care Awards Summary: view pdf 2010 Point-in-Time Count Fact Sheet: view pdf 2010 Point-in-Time Count Map (Numbers per ...

The Center for American Progress (CAP) recently released a report, "On the Streets: The Federal Response to Gay and Transgender Homeless Youth." Authored by Nico Sifra Quintana, Josh Rosenthal, and Jeff Krehely, it explores the reasons why gay and transgender youth are disproportionately represented among the homeless youth population. Probable causes listed include rejection by parents and violence and/or discrimination in institutions like schools and shelters. These problems are ...

In June 2010, Seedco and the United Way of New York City released the results of an evaluation of a homelessness prevention program targeted at low income families facing eviction - the Housing Help Program (HHP). The study reports on the outcomes of 1,059 families that received a combination of legal, benefits, and social services intended to prevent evictions and subsequent shelter entry. HHP differs from other eviction prevention models applied in New York City and elsewhere in its ...

The Center for Capacity Building's Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP) Virtual Discussion from June 24 is available on the National Alliance to End Homelessness website. During the discussion, Alliance staff, providers, and other interested parties discussed working with Legal Aid, how to improve employment outcomes for clients, budgeting with program participants, and more.

On June 28, 2010, NCCEH hosted a training on Effective HPRP Case Management. Melissa Mowery, Program Director for CAMBA's HomeBase, which provides rapid re-housing, aftercare and prevention services to families and adults in New York City, was the speaker at this training. Material from the training are posted below. "Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing" PowerPoint Presentation (pdf) HomeBase Rapid Re-Housing Field Guide Handout ...

The 2010 National Healthcare for the Homeless Conference and Policy Symposium was held June 3-5 in San Francisco, CA. The conference looked back at 25 years of HCH experience and looked forward to the challenges of making national health care reform work to help end homelessness. Materials from the conference are available on the HCH website. For audio recordings of sessions, presenters' PowerPoints, and handouts, go to the conference schedule and click on the session you are ...

The Corporation for Supportive Housing is pleased to make available the 2010 National Edition of Between the Lines: A Question and Answer Guide on Legal Issues in Supportive Housing. The Guide is published in two parts: the Chapters, which include an explanation of federal and some state laws governing supportive housing in a question and answer format; and the Appendices, which include more detailed information referenced in the Chapters. In 2001, CSH, with support from the U.S. ...

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP) has released its report "Staying Home: The Rights of Renters Living in Foreclosed Properties". The paper examines the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA) and how it is being implemented across the country. PTFA contains several provisions, including a mandate that tenants must receive 90 days notice before being required to vacate their property, intended to shield tenants from unlawful evictions that may force them ...

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) released a new federal strategic plan geared toward preventing and ending homelessness on June 22, 2010. The Secretaries of the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Veterans Affairs unveiled Opening Doors: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness together at a White House ceremony. The plan, the first comprehensive federal plan developed to prevent and end homelessness, ...

The Paul and Phyllis Fireman Charitable Foundation recently released a report called "Ending Family Homelessness in Massachusetts: A New Approach for the Emergency Assistance (EA) Program." The report, authored by Dennis Culhane and Thomas Byrne, examines how Massachusetts can improve its response to family homelessness. Recommendations by the authors on how to further efforts to improve Massachusetts' family homelessness system include providing increased program flexibility to ...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has released the 2009 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR), the fifth in a series of reports on homelessness in the United States. The reports respond to a series of Congressional directives calling for the collection and analysis of data on homelessness. The AHAR reports provide the latest counts of homelessness nationwide-including counts of individuals, persons in families, and special population groups such ...