The Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) offers funding assistance to public and non-profit organizations that are responding to the needs of homeless populations through a comprehensive community wide planning process and implementation strategy known as the Plan to End Homelessness.
Donor Name: Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA)
State: Michigan
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 08/12/2022
Grant Duration: 1 year
Details:
The Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) is a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) federal entitlement-based program that serves households experiencing homelessness or who are at risk. In the 2022-2023 grant year, MSHDA will receive funds from HUD and will provide a 1:1 match to make an estimated $10 million available across the State of Michigan. ESG is applied in strategic coordination with all other sources of locally available funding to end homelessness. All funded communities are responsible to ensure service outcomes are more racially equitable, and that regular review of HUD System Performance Measures informs local service planning and improvement. Additionally, ESG requires the use of a Coordinated Entry System (CES) as the process through which people experiencing homelessness or at risk of experiencing homelessness can access the housing crisis response system in a streamlined way. The CES is created by all homeless service providers working together in a synchronized fashion in conjunction with a primary coordinating agency known as the Housing Assessment and Resource Agency (HARA).
Core Strategies for ESG
- Adopt proven principles and tools to prevent and end homelessness: Use of a comprehensive community-based prevention and rapid re-housing system that embraces the principles of Housing First, progressive engagement, strength-based case management, racial equity, and trauma-informed services. Promote program models with successful measurable outcomes that are supported by data.
- Breakdown silos: Collaborate and coordinate with all members of the CoC/LPB to ensure that local, state, and federal resources are used effectively and efficiently to end homelessness.
- Map and evaluate the Coordinated Entry System (CES): CoC/LPB membership must review the CES flow at least annually to determine the effectiveness and equity of access, assessment, prioritization, and referral for any anyone seeking assistance.
- Align available resources for housing outcomes: Work as a community to align available funding and programs to keep people housed or to rapidly re-house them.
- Build public support and political will for ending homelessness: Share data and best practices with mayors, county officials, schools, and other interested parties.
- Create a communications plan: Develop a marketing and communications plan for the Coordinated Entry System with key partners in the community, including 2-1-1, MSHDA Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Housing Agents, mainstream service partners, government officials, consumers, and the general public. Examples include social media, brochures, and informational meetings.
- Complete routine data collection, analysis, and reporting: Collect and analyze data via the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). (Domestic violence service agencies must use a comparable database.) Staff should be trained on when to start entering data, what data must be entered, and how to share data with referral organizations.
- Implement Continuous Quality Improvement: At a minimum, CoCs/LPBs must review system performance measure outcomes as required by MSHDA and outlined in quarterly Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER).
Categories
- HUD Categories of Homelessness:
- Category 1 – An individual or family who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence,
- Category 2 – An individual or family who will imminently lose their primary nighttime residence
- Note: Category 3 (Homeless under other federal statute) is not currently applicable to MSHDA ESG.
- Category 4 – Any individual or family
- HUD Categories for At Risk of Homelessness:
Grant Period
Grants will begin on October 1, 2022 and end September 30, 2023.
Eligibility Criteria
- Recommended by the local CoC/LPB.
- A 501(c)3 nonprofit agency or local unit of government that operates its principal place of business in the State of Michigan (CoC/LPB, if incorporated as a 501(c)3 Entity, is eligible).
- Actively involved in the CoC/LPB planning process.
- Uses HMIS to produce quarterly reports (Domestic violence service agencies must use a comparable database).
- Participation in a Qualified Service Organization Business Associate Agreement (QSOBAA) to allow sharing within HMIS.
- Exhibits the financial capacity to administer funds as demonstrated through an audited federal financial statement.
- Has financial management systems in place such as cash receipts and disbursement logs, invoices, and cancelled check registers, etc.
- Employs staff who possess bachelor’s degree in accounting or possess experience in accounting along with college accounting credits or a bookkeeper whose work is overseen by an accounting firm.
- Considered a leader in the community with the ability to collaborate, coordinate, and partner with other local organizations.
Housing Assessment and Resource Agency:
- A 501(c)3 nonprofit agency or local unit of government that operates its principal place of business in the State of Michigan (CoC/LPB, if incorporated as a 501(c)3 Entity, is eligible).
- Actively involved in the CoC/LPB planning process.
- Experienced in serving homeless populations.
- Experienced in providing assessments, referrals, and case management services specifically targeted to people who are homeless.
- Experienced with successful HMIS data collection.
- Ability to complete standardized assessments to help ensure that the right individual/family is getting to the right program to end their homelessness.
- Participation in a QSOBAA to allow sharing within HMIS.
- Exhibits the financial capacity to administer funds as demonstrated through an audited federal financial statement.
- Has financial management systems in place such as cash receipts and disbursement logs, invoices, and cancelled check registers, etc.
- Employs staff who possess bachelor’s degree in accounting or possess experience in accounting along with college accounting credits or a bookkeeper whose work is overseen by an accounting firm.
- Capacity to place households on the MSHDA HCV Homeless Preference Waitlist and refer applicants for the Project Based Voucher (PBV) Program.
- Have established office hours Monday through Friday, sometime between 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., in the geographic area being served, i.e., a rural HARA may have office hours between 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Monday through Friday (no phone-only system).
- Considered a leader in the community with the ability to collaborate, coordinate and partner with other local organizations.
For more information, visit MSHDA.
