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Shelter Standards
As Proposed by the Homeless Congress
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Almost every shelter in Cuyahoga County is located in the City of Cleveland. Nearly every shelter is funded using public money from federal, state or local resources. Shelter stays can vary from a few days to up to two years. Currently, there are recommended guidelines from the State of Ohio, but there are no standards that a homeless person can point to when a conflict arises. Local advocates receive at least one complaint a week, and have nowhere to refer these complaints. This proposed law is intended to provide a minimum standard for the operation of shelters within the City of Cleveland. For those organizations that receive any public funds would have to adopt these standards or would not be allowed to apply for funds. The City Department of Community Development and the Cleveland City Council have influence over how Federal Emergency Shelter dollars, FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter dollars, HUD Continuum of Care dollars, State of Ohio shelter dollars, and all local funding that support the shelters are distributed.
These proposals were developed by the Homeless Congress between 2006 and 2007 with the thought of what the perfect shelter would look like in Cleveland. The Homeless Congress is a collection of two homeless representatives from each shelter that meets every three weeks, and are organized by the Coalition for the Homeless. After an initial presentation of the standards to the City, County and Social Service providers, the members of the Homeless Congress sent a copy to every shelter in the City of Cleveland. We gave one month to get comments back to the Homeless Congress. The Congress then debated the proposals that came in, and made a few changes to the proposal. The members of the Congress believe that they gave enough notice and opportunity for input, and now forward this to the City Council of Cleveland for action.
Scope of the Law: These standards would apply to all shelters operated within the City of Cleveland including both emergency shelters and transitional shelters. These standards would apply to all residential living facilities supported by the mental health board funding or alcohol and drug addiction services funding. The only publicly residential funded programs not governed by these rules include those that receive a majority of their funding from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections Department. Transitional Housing programs as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allow individuals to stay for up to two years. Because the length of stay within transitional housing is longer than most residential/apartment leases, we believe that the housing aspect of a person’s stay at a Transitional Housing shelter must be covered by the state and city landlord/tenant law. There should be a separation between the programming aspects of transitional shelters, which would be covered by this law, while the housing aspect of transitional shelter operation would fall under the landlord tenant law.
All shelters that accommodate nighttime residential stays must be operated by nonprofit organizations that release their 990 tax returns to the public on a yearly basis. Organizational and program budget information must be released to the public on a yearly basis.
All shelters must certify that they have secure locations for confidential client files.
Shelters must provide an atmosphere of dignity and respect for all residents and must provide services in a non-judgmental manner.
Each shelter must have a policy for handling staff grievances that is clearly posted. Staff needs to be held accountable for grievances. There must be some posted consequences for staff with legitimate grievances filed against them. An office within the City must be assigned to handle all grievances (Office of Consumer Affairs). There needs to be a government entity that has control over funding to investigate problems. The telephone number and address for this government office must be posted in every single shelter covered. This Office within the County should present a report to City Council every year as shelter allocation decisions are being made on the number of complaints and the resolution of those complaints.
Each shelter (with more than 50 people) must have at least one client advocate on site that will advocate for the interests of residents and handle resident concerns. It was suggested that an outside entity should employ the client advocates at each shelter to assure that they are independent. Another option would be a group of advocates would be hired to travel to the various shelters to act as homeless ombudsmen.
Shelters shall not allow visitation, as this would be a violation of privacy.
The City’s Office of Consumer Affairs will oversee all of the shelter standards. All shelters receiving public funds will be subject to a periodic review in coordination with Office of Homeless Services, Cuyahoga County, Mental Health Board, Alcohol and Drug Addictions Board and United Way with compliance to the shelter standards as part of the review. Funding will be tied to compliance with these policies. Those facilities out of compliance will have funding reduced or eliminated based on the recommendations of the review committee and those funds should be transferred to another provider who can serve the same population.
Shelters cannot discriminate based on age. If a shelter allows children they cannot discriminate based on the age or sex of the child under 17 years of age.
There needs to be a policy regarding children and referrals being made to the County child abuse hotline. This policy should be clearly posted for residents to see in shelters that serve women with children.
Shelters serving school age children must make every effort to get children enrolled into school within 24 hours of entering the shelter. Shelters serving school age children must immediately identify school age children during intake process to the Cleveland Municipal School District's Project ACT Helpline. If a child has been attending a charter or private school, shelter staff must facilitate arrangements with that school of origin. Shelters need to notify Project ACT when family leaves shelter and goes to another location to update emergency information in case the school needs to locate a parent or guardian.
When a child reaches the age of 18 and is a full time high school student residing in a shelter with a parent or guardian, he or she must remain at the shelter and not be transferred to an adult-only facility under any circumstances. If a young adult is still attending high school, they should remain with their parent or guardian in the shelter. School enrollment and attendance may be verified through a District Homeless Liaison in Cuyahoga County. Every school district in the State of Ohio has a district liaison.
Shelters cannot require identification as a condition for entry or demand those entering the shelter to enter personal information into a management information system as a condition for entry. This prohibition includes requiring the individual to disclose their social security number upon entering the shelter. All shelters should assist individuals seeking shelter in obtaining identification or a birth certificate if the individual does not have access to those documents including the transportation needed to obtain them.
Written rules must be presented to each resident upon entry. These rules must be displayed in the shelter. The rules need to specific the punishment for infractions of the rules. Shelters may keep their sober living environment as long as a “wet” shelter is created within the community, and there is an ability to transfer residents to other shelters if they relapse. Residents of publicly funded shelters may only be kicked out of the facility for violent activities and drug use on the premises. Shelter staff must file a police report for any of these incidents as criminal activity.
Upon entry to a shelter, residents should be given a voice mailbox so that they can remain connected with the outside world rather than depending upon getting messages from shelter staff.
All shelters must post a statement about the control of infectious diseases. Additionally, the shelter must post its policy regarding staff training and their control of infectious diseases, such as TB.
The laws with regard Adult Protective Services—specifically regarding seniors or others who are a threat to themselves or who cannot care for themselves must be clearly displayed at the shelter.
All shelters must have a written procedure on storing medication of residents and their access to this medication.
All shelters must have policies on serving both balanced meals and medically appropriate meals for those with a chronic health condition.
A nurse/health care professional must be on duty 24 hours for shelters with more than 100 people in the same building. All shelter staff must be trained in simple first aid including CPR.
One of the biggest barriers to stability is the ability for residents to work through previous traumatic experiences. A therapist needs to be available once a week for small shelters and once a day for large facilities. A therapy team could travel to a few different shelters throughout the week.
Every resident must be given a care package with hygiene items. The Office of Consumer Affairs will oversee that each resident receives a complete kit.
Every resident must be provided with clean linens.
There needs to be a written policy at each shelter regarding residents’ access to telephones.
A daily log of incidents must be kept. This does not need to be made public, but should be accessible in case a grievance is filed. Daily logs should be kept for up to two years.
Each resident must have access to a locker to secure his or her belongings.
Residents will receive mandatory life skills training during their stay in the shelter. These classes will include training on how to get jobs, drug treatment, how to act in life or death situations, how to perform CPR and first aid, how to maintain a home, how to keep a bank account, and how to fill out applications.
Residents should be offered job training while in the shelter including training on working in the shelters. This would have the benefit of allowing residents to find a job and could move into a job at the shelter if one opened.
Each shelter needs to create a safety plan for residents and that plan must be approved by a group of independent non-affiliated homeless individuals, such as the Homeless Congress. This safety plan cannot be approved solely by current residents of the shelter seeking the plan’s approval. This safety plan should address the use of armed and uniformed security officers. There was concern that armed security who wear the sheriff or police uniform discourage people from entering, but there is also a need for security at many of the shelters.
Every shelter must have a bus pass policy that needs to be approved by an outside group of homeless individuals. Residents should not have to walk to appointments or work for bus passes. There was also a desire to see if all the shelters could pool their resources and get a discount on daily bus passes. There should be funds for individuals to get bus tickets or transportation so that they can get a job and find housing
Shelters must provide transportation (a shuttle service) for people with health concerns and people getting health care. There also needs to be a way to access prescription drugs especially the payment of prescription drugs.
Different types of people have different needs. Large shelters (over 100 people) must divide up their population based on residents’ individual needs so that each person receives more individualized care.
A housing plan must be created for each resident by the second week of the person staying at any publicly funded shelter.
Each shelter must have a plan for collecting mail so that residents get their mail in a timely manner. This plan must be approved by an independent group of homeless people such as the Homeless Congress.
Shelters must help residents establish a savings plan so they can save money and get into housing. Classes on banking and savings must be offered at the shelter.
Shelter Staffing/Training Needs
All shelters that receive public money must send their staff to sensitivity training and must insure that residents and alumni are involved in how these classes are structured. The training must include mediation issues and how to handle tense situations in a nonviolent manner. Staff must be trained on the services available in the community to assure that referrals are appropriate. A certification process should be available to the public to verify that all staff have attended the proper training requirements.
Volunteers at an adult shelter are strongly encouraged, but not required, to receive formal training. If a shelter houses children, volunteers must have criminal background checks in order to volunteer. No one with a violent or sexual-based criminal history will be allowed to volunteer at a shelter housing children.
Staff members need background checks and must be subjected to random drug tests. Drug finding does not necessarily result in termination, but could result in referral to a treatment program instead.
It is mandated that harm reduction models be developed, specifically in the form of a “wet” shelter within the city of Cleveland within two years of passage of this law for both men and women. This will be a place where active users can stay so they do not freeze to death or die of heat exposure, but where they would not be required to abstain from doing drugs or alcohol off site. In all shelters, residents may be kicked out for only two reasons: using drugs or alcohol on the property or violence on the property.
Each shelter must write up plans for their ultimate goal—going out of business. They need plans to get everyone housed in some limited period of time so that there is no longer a need for shelters. An annual report should be developed by the Office of Homeless Services or Department of Community Development using the information provided by each shelter to assess how close they are to going out of business because they are no longer necessary.