|
||
Testimony of Jean-Michel Giraud, Executive Director October 30, 2006 Good morning Mr. Chairman and Members of the Human ServicesCommittee and thank you for this opportunity to testify, I am Jean-Michel Giraud, the Executive Director of the Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place. The Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place serves over 450 persons experiencing homelessness each year in upper northwest with street outreach, hospitality, case management, medical and psychiatric services. Through partnerships with local congregations and with Anne Frank House, and within our own facilities, we offer temporary, transitional and permanent housing to a total of 50 people, and will go up to75 slots in the winter with two hypothermia sites. These services are offered in small-group settings ranging from shelter of up to 6 beds, to group homes and independent living units. CCHFP also hosts a Unity Health Care Clinic that offers walk-in medical and psychiatric services at the Friendship Place Resource Center four times a week. This clinic and CCHFP programs welcome people who are living on the streets in an area that goes from W and Calvert Streets to Western Avenue, and, from Rock Creek Park to the Potomac. We also welcome a number of people who share their time between the downtown area and the Friendship Heights and Tenleytown Areas, and work to assist callers who need information on resources to avoid evictions. In addition to the services I have described, CCHFP also provides mail, voice mail and phone services to the people who come to the drop-in center. Direct assistance on the street consists of food, water, blanket and clothing, resource information, and emergency assistance. These services are aimed at reducing the dangers of exposure to extreme heat or cold, and also constitute an engagement tool to establish trust-based relationships. The Community Council for the Homeless was founded in 1992 by concerned community members who recognized the need for homeless services in Ward III. It has become a professional organization with a staff of 25 employees and enjoys active community support. Through the years, CCHFP has touched thousands of lives in the district relying for the main part on individual donations to fund its outreach, case management and residential services. CCHFP also receives support, in-kind and financial, from congregations, foundations, other non-profit organizations, and secures district and federal funding for part of its operations through The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness. District and federal funding amounts to 23% of our overall operations budget for FY 2007. A key challenge for the organization has been to sustain quality-oriented services and respond to the growing need for services. This thrust has led to the development and refinement of an alternative, person-centered service model with outcome-measurement practices placing CCHFP within the category of evidence-based-practice. It has also meant that the organization has been challenged with growing funding needs which are not adequately met through public funding channels. Our services do not fit well in the Medical Assistance reimbursement model, few of them are reimbursable in that system and many of the people we serve are not eligible for these services from personal work histories to the fact that some have no known identities or sufficient documentation, this is especially true during the initial engagement phase on the street. CCHFP is also left to secure funding on its own for psychiatric consultations provided to the uninsured, which are not covered in the District’s funding system the way medical consultations are. Additional funding from the city is greatly needed to support CCHFP and other organizations throughout the District that provide services to the estimated 16,000 to17, 000 neighbors who experience homelessness each year in our city. ++++
|
