Travis County Commissioners Court
April 4, 2006
Item 3
Number 3, receive report from the basic needs coalition of central Texas and take appropriate action.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners.
>> good morning.
>> sherri flemming, executive manager for health and human services and veterans service. We have with us today our partners with the basic needs coalition of central Texas. And they have for you an update on their project, the best single source and as you know it's a system change model in the area of -- of serving folks in our community with basic needs. So with that said I will turn it over to susan sues eason the current chair.
>> we will be very brief this morning. I know your time is very limited. I知 delighted to be back, we are delighted to be back in front of you to give you an update on the progress of the best single source. Before I let lee manford tell you about it, I thank you for the incredible support we have received over the years for our efforts. The lady to my right has been a pivotal part of our success. [reading names] all county employees who have been a very, very important part of the success of the basic needs coalition and we thank you very sincerely and also thank all of you for your support as we go forward. I知 going to let lee talk to you a little bit about our successes with the best single source project at this time. Thank you.
>> thank you, susan. I also want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to come this morning and get an update on best single source. I want to thank you, a number of years ago when we came and asked for some additional emergency assistance dollars, you provided that in that one year and then challenged us to come back with a different model, which we did. And we could not have done that without -- without the integral work of the county and being a partner in that process with us, in coming up with that. I know that you received the presentation ahead of time. I知 going to start on page 6 and kind of -- kind of go through that. Quickly. I know that you have had a chance to read this. So I知 going to -- highlight just a few things that aren't included in the slide. But best single source was a systemic change in the way that financial assistance is delivered in Austin Travis County. And it was built on the premises of utilizing the best agency to deliver the service to the client, a single agency, to have an adequate amount of funding available that would address the emergency situation that caused the client to need assistance, deliver that service through comprehensive case management with the ultimate goal of achieving housing stability. Now, those are the goals on the programmatic side. On the system side, it's a model that has pooled resource, centralized administration and fiscal management, shared data base to eliminate duplication of services and to provide aggregate data. And it's based on community level decision making driven by community level data. It's a model that's designed specifically to address a financial crisis that would put the housing of a client in jeopardy. Case management issues to offer optimal opportunity for stabilization and to also on front end to assess the likelihood of success through financial assistance with the best single source program. Beyond the financial assistance, the client would have a level of income that would sustain housing once that financial crisis is met. So eligibility requires resident of Travis County, income less than [indiscernible]% of the federal poverty guidelines, puts housing in jeopardy but that stability would be able to be maintained through case management and through the financial crisis.
>> can you tell me, I知 going to be very brief with this, can you tell me has that mean in terms of dollars when you say [indiscernible] percent below the poverty guidelines, what is that in actual money for a person to qualify as far as eligibility.
>> less than 40,000.
>> okay. Good to know that, you hear these terms, then a person really don't really know what that means. So less than $40,000.
>> thank you, Commissioner, that would be for a family of four.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. We found that on -- on number 8 the reasons that our client asked for help are the nature of the financial crisis. Just looking at the first two, reduction in income, are some -- some personal or family-related health issues. You see over 63% of our clients needed this financial assistance, that was the nature of their financial crisis. As we design this model, it was really important to us to have appropriate systems for monitoring and evaluation. We wanted data, data basically supported the basic premises behind the model, then we wanted ongoing data to determine if the model itself was effective. When we look at 2005 program results, in 2005, 520 unduplicated clients access services through the best single source project. That is up from the original projection of 400. And that was largely due to -- to a slightly lower amount of average assistance than what we had originally projected as well as additional funding that was made available both by the county and by the city and we thank you for that. Case management is a component of this model. And clients are evaluated upon exiting case management. So of the 520, 372 have exited the program. At the end of 2005. Of those 372, 94% were assessed at exit as having successfully completed the program, meaning that they were in equal or better housing at that point it was assessed that that would be stabilized housing. The average amount of assistance was $1,077. Climate main tarning housing 13%. The goal under the program was 85. You can see at the point of exit that was in excess of the original goal of the project. Clients current on bill when's exit knowledge the program, 8 -- exiting the program, 87%. The next item is a self report item because the other goal of the program is that -- is that clients will not need to seek additional financial assistance for housing within the 12-month period after exit. We are just now getting to that period. So we will be coming back at a future date to report on that. That outcome. But we did ask clients as they were exiting the program if they felt that they would need additional financial assistance within the year. Now, we weren't specific as to housing. It was more general in terms of financial assistance. 30% reported that they felt they might need additional assistance. Again that's a self report. We are going to have data to determine whether that does play out. We must also keep in mind to be eligible for the program folks are at 200% or below the federal poverty guidelines. On the next slide there's a little more data about -- about both living situation of clients who access the program during 2005 as well as income. In terms of some next steps, we felt like that -- that what we were able to do through best single course is really look at a specific type of emergency financial assistance that would put housing in jeopardy. There still is a tremendous need for financial assistance and we feel like that at this point as a project we need to be looking at some of these other needs to see if there are also some systemic changes that could be made around other types of financial assistance. So we are doing some research in that regard. Specifically, we are going to look at individuals who are at a very low income, fixed income, whose living expenses consume a large portion of their monthly income. The next slide indicates the -- the agencies that participated in best single source in 2005. Want to acknowledge our funders again, Travis County, then -- then very -- very important financial partner, in the development of best single source, Travis County has also carved out a portion of their emergency financial assistance to participate. Self fund their implementation of best single source and it's my understanding that the county will be making a separate presentation at a future date in terms of their experience. City of Austin has been a funder. A.m.d., anonymous donor from united way are additional fundners the pilot. In 2005 we also have a corporate donor. We continue to see interest in this model, both in terms of the county and the city's interest as well as interest in the private sector.
>> I would -- I would just like to add --
>> can you answer this question for me, please, if you can. What of the total population of Travis County, what -- what percentage of that population falls into these categories as far as needing this kind of assistance? That we serve.
>> we have data that shows that -- that there are -- there are at a minimum 100,000 or more households in Travis County who are below the federal poverty income divide line in terms of -- of the income that they earn being less than what it would take for the average person to -- to meet their basic needs. Now, it would depend on -- you know, here in Austin it's -- it's significantly more expensive than some other places to live. So, therefore, we -- we project that we have a larger number of folks who struggle with meeting their basic needs. But just if you look at the federal poverty income guideline, which actually is 100%, we actually serve folks who are at a higher level than that, at 200%, but those folks who -- who are at 100% or what is considered the -- the benchmark for poverty, there's about 100,000 households in Travis County who meet that criteria.
>> [indiscernible] population.
>> right.
>> I wanted to add, we were talking a lot about housing stability. And the reason why that was such a focus of this project is because of the cost that has been identified with bringing families back from homelessness. I think the -- our counterparts in the area of homelessness will tell you that it costs more than $4,500 to bring people back from homelessness once they have been truly homeless, living in a shelter, having lost, you know, a house to live in or if they are living with family or whatever. Just having that family start over in a residence, costs close to $4,500. So that's why we wanted to focus on housing stability, primarily with this project.
>> any other questions or comments? So do we have another discussion about the -- about the next steps at some point? In the future?
>> yes, sir, we would like to come back and do that presentation.
>> I do think that it would be appropriate if -- especially in single source is working as we hoped.
>> yes.
>> because we have got -- we have other models in place. And if I知 to be left with the impression that this model is a whole lot better than the others, it leaves one wondering why not make this model a lot more comprehensive. Maybe phase out some of the others, especially if we can pick up some of the same residents in need.
>> judge, along with that, I think pretty important, we can show -- before we -- before we actually initiate a lot of these efforts in this particular program setting, I would like to maybe show the -- especially in the duplication of service and the data base area, we have got a data base now, we have a data base, rather. It's apparently, it appears to be working. If I could -- if I could at all get a comparison to the -- to the number of cases that would have maybe fall end under duplicates of services services falling in single source, non-duplication of service, because you are sharing a data base, that would be kind of something good to look at, to make sure that that particular component of what we are doing, to make sure that we share a common data base is something that I think we need to look -- because I think that's a strong component to ensure that we don't duplicate services. I just wanted to make sure that that part of it is revealed what [indiscernible] need to.
>> sharing more information for you. We have other committees doing work in the areas of food and utility as well.
>> we will be happy to come back and share that with you.
>> maybe it would be a good idea to post a work session.
>> flesh it out a little more.
>> one thing, if we can get some demographic information, I think that would be helpful. Because I really think that we need to bust some of the myths out there, who are some of these folks that are seeking help. If anybody is wondering, there are poor people, there are hungry people, there are people in need of good and safe housing who live in every sector of Travis County. They are of all races, sexes, it is largely children. We really need to get the information because there's so many people who are doing very, very well in Travis County. But we have this increasing divide of people who are not making it. And we cannot ignore what's going on there. I知 certainly going to be spending my remaining time in this court making sure those folks are not forgotten, I appreciate your work.
>> thank you, Commissioner, we look forward to doing that.
>> thank you all.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, April 5, 2006 10:34 AM