Housing for Health Partnership’s Housing and Resource Connection Approach
The Housing for Health Partnership in Santa Cruz County defines Coordinated Entry as the approach to coordinate and manage the system’s resources for housing, participating shelters, and supportive services. This approach helps providers make equitable decisions to connect people to interventions to end their homelessness as quickly as possible based on available information and resources.
The Coordinated Entry process aims to ensure that individuals experiencing homelessness have fair and equitable access to the resources and services for which they are eligible, regardless of where they present for assistance. Households with the highest service and housing needs are targeted to those who need them most. The process also acknowledges that housing resources and services for housing are limited.
Housing for Health Partnership (H4HP) Connectors are designated providers specially trained in this process and work to provide as many people as possible with support, connection to services, and problem-solving partnership with the goal of resolving homelessness.
Requesting Connection Services
H4HP Coordinated Entry System's Goals
Facilitating connections to mainstream and community services for as many persons experiencing homelessness as local resources allow.
- Streamlining the process for matching to limited housing resources within the Housing for Health Partnership network (CoC).
- Prioritizing resources to households with the most significant barriers to getting and keeping housing and to those with the greatest personal health and safety risks.
Connector Role
The Coordinated Entry process now uses a strengths-based problem-solving approach to provide support to individuals and families experiencing homelessness to leverage connections with mainstream and community resources. The goal is for all persons experiencing homelessness to be connected to services available such as healthcare, employment, benefits, and other resources that help meet their basic needs and support housing outcomes. With this approach, Connectors meet regularly with participants over a period averaging 3-6 months, building relationships, and engaging in problem-solving conversations to help guide individuals toward a pathway to housing.
During this engagement, Connectors also conduct a Housing Needs Assessment (HNA). The HNA only collects information needed to provide Connectors and participants with information to create and act together on an individualized Housing Action Plan, and to provide information to the Housing for Health Division (H4H) to determine participant eligibility and prioritization for H4HP’s limited housing program resources.
Inventory Based Referrals
Recognizing the limited inventory of housing programs within H4HP, Coordinated Entry uses an inventory-based referral model. A household’s score on the Housing Needs Assessment must meet a designated threshold to qualify for referral, prioritizing them for available resources. This threshold score is determined based on the number of resources available in the system’s inventory, the type of household seeking assistance, and the likelihood of being referred to a housing program in the next six months.
For single individuals, the current threshold score is set at a high level given limited resources for this population. For families and Transition Age Youth (TAY), no threshold score exists, as there are currently sufficient housing program slots to accommodate nearly all identified eligible families and TAY (18–24-year-olds) for a referral to a housing program within a six-month period. Households that don’t meet the threshold score continue to work with Connectors through a housing problem solving partnership.
