CoC funds are awarded competitively, and are based on past performance. Unfortunately, advocates for homeless programs in rural areas have not been successful in getting the message across to HUD and legislators that rural homelessness is different from urban homelessness, both in causes, the demographics of those experiencing homelessness, and in levels of local resources for providing the full range of services needed in order to stabilize individuals and families and help them remain housed.

I really hate to see this kind of decision, which ultimately will encourage regressive practices such as handing homeless people bus tickets to the Big City so they can get help there.

NCAF Blasts Bush’s Veto of Labor-HHS

WASHINGTON (Nov. 13, 2007) Community Action Agencies (CAAs) that administer self-help to low-income Americans nationwide are exasperated by President Bush’s veto of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education appropriations bill.

“This is the height of hypocrisy,” said National Community Action Foundation Executive Director David Bradley. “The President’s veto of Labor-HHS appropriations and passage of the Department of Defense appropriations in the same day is a clear-cut case of misplaced spending priorities. America will support investments in Iraq, but not invest in the education and well-being of U.S. children, low-wage workers and retirees.”

The bill would have increased Community Action’s core resource, the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) and provided an increase for Head Start funding that many Community Action Agencies integrate with additional child and family development services. The bill also would have increased funding for senior programs that CAAs use for services such as senior centers and Meals on Wheels.

In addition, the Labor-HHS bill allocated 11.6 percent more for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, in which Community Action Agencies are reporting significant application increases. President Bush’s 2008 budget request contained a 17.5 percent cut in LIHEAP below 2007 funding levels.

“Recent forecasts of energy prices that are 11 percent higher than last year and colder months ahead have many low-wage working families worrying about how much energy they will need to stay warm this winter,” Bradley said. “President Bush’s veto is out of touch with the needs and expectations of the American people.

“The Labor-HHS appropriations bill would have reversed cuts in human services programs enacted over the past several years and would have made key reinvestments in America’s domestic priorities,” he said. “Voters expect our government to meet America’s domestic needs in a fiscally responsible way, and they expect the parties to work together to meet those needs.”

One way that I’ve used ROMA tools to improve my program management that has nothing to do with submitting loads of data to the government involves outcome reports for case managers. It seemed pretty obvious to me, but when I shared it at the ROMA training yesterday, a number of people seemed to think it was an example of best practices. In case it might be helpful to anyone else in my position out there, I wanted to discuss it a bit.

All of the programs I work with have outcomes associated with them. One way that I’ve worked to focus our energy on accomplishing those is through outcome reports that we now use on a weekly basis. Staff receive individual reports on performance, noting outstanding goals and also showing overall outcomes.

Being able to see outcomes-to-date helps keep all of us aware of the successes we are having with the people we serve, and it’s good motivation–”You’re doing a great job!” is not the same as “Did you notice that you are having an 82% entered employment rate with your homeless clients? Compared to national averages, that is remarkable.”

Outcome check-ins help me and my staff to be more accountable, and it helps us make fast corrections when we get off course with programs or individual clients.

By the way, I email out reports, so it’s not destroying the environment.

For a bit of context, I work at a community action agency (CAA). CAAs carry on President Johnson’s war on poverty by offering a wide range of programs to reduce and eliminate that poverty. We get money. We produce outcomes. We report those outcomes using guidelines spelled out in ROMA literature. Over a thousand other organizations use ROMA tools to help develop and report outcomes as well. Together, these outcomes should reduce poverty across the country. All of the outcomes fit neatly into one (or more) ROMA goals:

Goal 1: Low-income people become more self-sufficient.
Goal 2: The conditions in which low-income people live are improved.
Goal 3: Low-income people own a stake in their community.
Goal 4: Partnerships among supporters and providers of service to low- income people are achieved.
Goal 5: Agencies increase their capacity to achieve results.
Goal 6: Low-income people, especially vulnerable populations, achieve their potential by strengthening family and other supportive systems.
[quoted from here]

There’s a lot to value in the process; I approach my programs differently when I am thinking about performance measures than I do when I am thinking, “Ah, it’s another day. Let’s get some homeless people into housing!” It helps me think about long-term impact, about communities, and about outcomes being something beyond simply providing a service.

On the other hand, it takes time. A lot of time. Data collection doesn’t happen by osmosis, and every time I find out that there’s some new information we need to be collecting, verifying, storing, and reporting, I feel the dream of an eventual vacation slipping farther and farther away. It will be two years since I started in a couple of weeks, and in that time, I’ve only taken more than a day of vacation off in a row when I have been sick or had surgery. However, I don’t think that’s the intended outcome of ROMA. It would be funny if it were, I must say.”Goal 7: Community Action Agency employees stop having time for vacations. Any vacations. Even sick leave. There’s work to be done.”