Maricopa County Expanded Access to Homeless Services - The Maricopa County Expanded Access to Homeless Services project will provide targeted outreach and engagement through certified Peer Support Navigators to homeless adults who have the highest number of service transactions on the Human Services Campus (HSC), have accessed services on the campus in the past 30 days, and are not included on the coordinated entry housing priority list or Community Bridges, Inc.’s (CBI) Phoenix Rise behavioral health clinic. In any given month, 2,900 homeless adults on average access services located at the HSC. Data from the top 300 adults with the highest number of service transactions annually indicate that these participants used services at the HSC an average of 208 days in the past year. Seventy-two percent of these 300 participants reported one or more disabling conditions and 57% qualified as chronically homeless. Yet, only 22% of the participants were enrolled with the Phoenix Rise program. In addition, only 17% were staying in shelter, 10% resided in housing, and 24% were included on the Housing Priority List (BNL). As the data shows, some homeless adults do not have the capacity to navigate their way through the service delivery system on their own. More importantly, the level of outreach and engagement needed for this segment of the population to be successful is not reimbursable through Medicaid.
CBI's navigation services, based on four evidence-based practices - housing first, harm reduction, motivational interviewing, and assertive outreach - have proven effective in reaching hard to serve adults who are homeless and have substance use, mental health, and chronic health conditions. For this project, CBI’s Navigators will integrate the evidence-based practice of critical time intervention to their existing navigation model and will partner with the HSC to routinely use data on the high frequency service users to more effectively target outreach efforts to this high risk/high needs population.
The project goal is that homeless adults who are the most frequent users of services at the Human Service Campus have targeted outreach and support to access the full spectrum of homeless services including housing and health care. By April 30, 2021 and each year of the project, at least 100 participants from the target population will engage with an Outreach Navigator. At least 50 participants from the target population will be added to the Housing Priority List (i.e. By Name List) and at least 50 participants will become enrolled with Phoenix Rise annually. By April 30, 2021 and each year of the project, at least 25 participants from the target population will transition from homelessness into housing and at least 75 participants from the target population will become screened for and enrolled with AHCCCS and other cash and non-cash benefits for which they are eligible.
