Keeping elderly, disabled and other residents out of institutions and in their homes makes moral sense and practical sense, “but we must make our voices heard” to increase the availability of Housing Plus Services, CHFA Executive Director Timothy Bannon summarized in concluding the full-house event at The Lyceum April 2. (materials distributed at event are here)

The fourth of five forums in the 2009 “Housing: The Hub of Public Policy” series conducted by DECD and The Partnership for Strong Communities, “Housing Plus Services” focused on two immutable facts: providing resident service coordinators to direct residents to the programs they need is universally successful where available across the state, but the waiting lists for housing with services are long, and getting longer.

Key findings from the forum:

• There is an overwhelming need for affordable and suitable homes across the state. The state’s “Money Follows The Person” program, a Medicaid demonstration project, is capable of moving 5,000 of the 18,000 Medicaid recipients out of Connecticut nursing homes, but there is a shortage of “qualified residences.” This mirrors the shortage of housing faced by staff who serve them in the community—the nurses, nurse’s aides and other professionals.
  
  The Simon Konover Company reports that they have 1,500 households on a waiting list twice as long as the number of units they have built and manage for the elderly, disabled and low-income residents. New Samaritan Corporation, a non-profit housing firm specialized in serving the elderly, has a waiting list of 2,500. Across the state, thousands more are on waiting lists.
  
  
• Keeping a resident in his or her private home is only half the cost of an institutionalized setting, and a third the cost of a skilled nursing facility. 
  
  
• Some existing housing units could be “qualified residences” if there were more Sect. 8 housing vouchers and state Rental Assistance Payment vouchers available. 
  
  
• HUD has long recognized the value, and devoted resources to, Housing Plus Services, and CHFA under Bannon is now working with DSS, DECD and DMHAS to expand state resources. DECD is contracting with the UConn Health Center to train new Resident Services Coordinators. 
  
  
• Resident Services Coordinators are able to help residents in many ways, connecting them to counseling, medical services, job training, financial literacy training, youth programs, nutrition training and assistance, physical therapy, credit rating improvement and the benefits they have coming to them. 
  
  
• Housing finance programs and agencies must help developers and recipients build service provision and resident service coordinators into their budgets so there is continued funding to help residents stay housed, live successfully and ultimately, where possible, move off of public assistance.