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Statewide Leadership Team
With representatives from MSDHA, DHS, DLEG, MDOC, the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness, Corporation for Supportive Housing, Michigan Nonprofit Association, and Michigan Disability Rights Coalition, this team promotes the Campaign to End Homelessness with statewide agencies. Its other roles are to identify and facilitate opportunities for state-level collaboration, oversee the activities of the statewide workgroups, and make strategic decisions regarding the Campaign’s organization.
This team also tracks collaboration among state agencies and alignment of their activities addressing homelessness of its risk factors. It oversees joint funding and in-kind support, and facilitates new opportunities. Overall, it meets monthly to monitor progress of the campaign and plan future steps.
Statewide Workgroups
Michigan’s Campaign to End Homelessness is sorted into five statewide workgroups. These groups are a key link between the Campaign’s state-level leadership and the eight regions. Each group specializes in one of these five areas; improving communications, identifying and sharing promising practices, helping to resolve systemic issues, data and technology, and identifying and facilitating improvements in housing and access to services. These groups meet regularly to share findings and support the goals of each group and the campaign as a whole.
Regional Council
The Campaign to End Homelessness is lead, in part, by a regional council in each of the eight regions. These councils have two representatives from their Continuum of Care and a representative from the Department of Human Services. Regional councils also elect two council members to be state representatives from the region. The role of each council is to recommend system changes and identify regional resource needs and priorities, monitor the progress of local plans, and to create and implement a regional plan that identifies commonalities in local plans, setting goals and objectives. Because of their interaction with the region, the councils are best situated to share best practices within the region and address barriers to implementation. Each council also identifies training needs and manages the regional training budget, identifies ways to share resources, assists in managing regional data, and represents the region on issues such as system changes, policy change, and prioritization of resources. Members of the council may also be selected to advocate for changes to state and federal policy. Ultimately, each council is responsible for supporting the successful implementation of local 10-year plans. Each council normally meets monthly, but at least quarterly.
AmeriCorps
In 2008, MSHDA and the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness (MCAH) received federal funding to develop the Michigan’s Campaign To End Homelessness AmeriCorps Program. The Campaign AmeriCorps Program is part of AmeriCorps*State and as of April 2009, includes 20 full-time members.
Members serving in the Campaign AmeriCorps Program are called Housing and Services Liaisons. Liaisons are placed at service providers across the state and perform four primary tasks: conducting outreach with consumers, providing housing assistance, networking consumers to resources and following up with consumers who have transitioned into housing. Time, funding and manpower are often stumbling blocks for organizations; AmeriCorps members serving as Liaisons are able to fill in the gaps by providing critical services to communities and bringing them closer to achieving the goals outlined in their 10-Year Plans. The Campaign AmeriCorps Program currently serves 21 counties in Michigan.
Links:
The Campaign Trail: Chronicles of the Campaign to End Homelessness AmeriCorps Members
http://americorpscteh.wordpress.com/
The Michigan Community Service Commission
http://www.michigan/gov/mcsc
AmeriCorps State and National
http://www.americorps.gov/for_individuals/choose/state_national.asp