Shelter Plus Care
- What Is Shelter Plus Care?
- Who Is Eligible for Shelter Plus Care?
- Applying for Shelter Plus Care/Downloading an Application
- DMH Housing Manual
What Is Shelter Plus Care?
Prior to 2012, Shelter Plus Care was the name HUD gave to one specific funding source established by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 and associated regulations. As of July 2012, under the HEARTH Act and its regulations, Shelter Plus Care ceased to exist by that name and became part of a larger single source of funds called the Continuum of Care (CoC) Program. “Shelter Plus Care” continues to be DMH’s name for its permanent housing programs funded under HUD’s CoC Program.
Shelter Plus Care (SPC) brings together permanent housing and mental health support services for people who are both homeless and disabled. The goal of SPC is to create long-term housing stability, a return to self-sufficiency, and reintegration with community. Individuals and families receiving SPC assistance sign their own lease with a landlord and pay 30% of their income toward their rent. SPC funds, administered by local community housing agencies, pay the balance of the rent. If a program participant has zero income, SPC funds pay 100% of the rent.
SPC funds can also pay for a security deposit up to the value of one month's rent. Some participants may be eligible for utility assistance as well, depending on income and household size. SPC funds may not be used to pay for tenancy application fees, furniture or other start-up costs. SPC participants can rent a unit within the geographical limits of the grant that funds that area; must rent within an area where they can access mental health supportive services; and are limited in rental amount by HUD's Fair Market Rent standards. For more information on Fair Market Rents in Missouri, see the DMH Housing Manual, Chapter 4.
While participating in Shelter Plus Care, program participants are expected to work on increasing their incomes through employment or by accessing mainstream resources such as SSI or SSDI. Program participants must participate in some form of case management while in Shelter Plus Care.
The Missouri Department of Mental Health Housing Unit manages 44 HUD grants that fund SPC programs in both the urban counties of Jackson, St. Louis City and St. Louis County as well as many rural counties. The table below gives further information about DMH's SPC grants (updated December 2012):
| Grants | Area Covered | Number of Households Budgeted to Assist | Housing Unit Staff Contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| KANSAS CITY REGION | |||
Kansas City Metro: 6 grants |
Jackson County and Kansas City limits |
372 |
|
Kansas City Chronic Homelessness grants: 5 grants |
Jackson County and Kansas City limits |
89 |
Amy Copeland |
| ST. LOUIS REGION | |||
St. Louis City: 4 grants |
City of St. Louis |
282 |
|
St. Louis County: 3 grants |
County of St. Louis |
68, including 9 for families only |
Judy Johnson |
St. Louis City Chronic Homelessness grants: 2 grants |
City of St. Louis |
80 |
Judy Johnson |
St. Louis County Chronic Homelessness grants: 4 grants |
County of St. Louis |
43, including 7 for chronic veterans only |
Judy Johnson |
| SPRINGFIELD REGION | |||
Springfield |
Greene, Christian and Webster Counties |
17 |
Liz Hagar-Mace |
| JOPLIN REGION | |||
Joplin |
Jasper and Newton Counties |
24 |
|
| Joplin, Chronic Homelessness | Jasper and Newton Counties | 1 | Dirk Cable |
| ST. JOSEPH REGION | |||
St. Joseph |
Buchanan, Andrew and DeKalb Counties |
30 |
Dirk Cable |
| BALANCE OF STATE (RURAL COUNTIES) | |||
Bootheel |
Stoddard, Scott, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot and Dunklin Counties |
17 |
|
Branson |
Stone and Taney Counties |
17 |
|
| Central Missouri | Cole, Audrain, Callaway and Cooper Counties | 11 | Edwin Cooper |
Farmington |
St. Francois County |
21 |
Edwin Cooper |
Hannibal |
Ralls and Marion Counties |
22 |
Edwin Cooper |
Jefferson-Franklin |
Jefferson and Franklin Counties |
9 |
Edwin Cooper |
Kirksville : 2 grants |
Adair County |
26 |
Edwin Cooper |
| Nevada | Vernon County | 6 | Edwin Cooper |
Outer Kansas City Metro Counties |
Clay, Ray, Lafayette, Johnson, Henry and Bates Counties |
9 |
|
Poplar Bluff |
Butler and Wayne Counties |
23 |
Edwin Cooper |
Rolla |
Phelps, Pulaski, Laclede, Miller, and Camden Counties |
18 |
Edwin Cooper |
| West Central Missouri | Johnson, Saline and Pettis Counties | 10 | Edwin Cooper |
West Plains |
Texas, Howell , Douglas and Ozark Counties |
17 |
Edwin Cooper |
Who Is Eligible for Shelter Plus Care?
Applicants for SPC assistance must meet four requirements to be considered eligible:
- The Applicant must have one of the following disabilities: a serious mental illness, a chronic drug or alcohol abuse disorder, a severe and chronic developmental disability, or a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS or related diseases (see "What Is a Disability?" below, for more information on assessing applicants for disability status);
- The Applicant must be receiving long-term mental health support services (typically this means case management, at a minimum) for a disability, directly from the Department of Mental Health or from an agency contracted with DMH to provide such services;
- The Applicant must be homeless, as defined by HUD, at the time of application (see "Who Is Homeless?" below, for the definition of homelessness); and
- The Applicant must have income no greater than 50% of the area median income (also known as “very low income”) as defined by HUD. See the DMH Housing Manual, Chapter Two, for more information on area median income.
Persons with felony criminal records, including registered sex offenders, are NOT excluded from eligibility for DMH's Shelter Plus Care program.
Several DMH SPC grants exclusively assist individuals who are chronically homeless according to HUD's definition of that term. See below for HUD's definition of "chronically homeless."
What Is a Disability?
HUD defines a disability as a condition that 1) is expected to be long-continuing or of indefinite duration; 2) substantially impedes an individual’s ability to live independently; 3) could be improved by the provision of more suitable housing conditions; and 4) is a physical, mental, or emotional impairment, including an impairment caused by alcohol or drug abuse, posttraumatic stress disorder, or brain injury. HUD regulations also specifically include developmental disabilities, AIDS, and HIV infection as disabling conditions.
For purposes of DMH's Shelter Plus Care programs, applicants need not be receiving Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) to qualify as disabled. To establish disability, a person who is licensed by the State of Missouri to diagnose a mental illness or one of the other conditions described above must sign the "Verification of Disability" form in the application for Shelter Plus Care, stating which disability the applicant has. The following professions are appropriately licensed or otherwise recognized by the state to sign this form:
- Advanced Practice Registered Nurse
- Licensed Clinical Social Worker
- Licensed Professional Counselor
- Physician
- Psychiatrist
- Psychologist
Who Is Homeless?
HUD defined homelessness in regulations promulgated under the HEARTH Act on January 4, 2012. Further commentary from HUD limits the definition applicable to permanent housing programs under the Continuum of Care Program, of which DMH's Shelter Plus Care program is one. For DMH's SPC program, homeless persons are individuals and families who "lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence." This consists of:
"(i) An individual or family with a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, including a car, park, abandoned building, bus or train station, airport, or camping ground;"
Considerations:
- A person whose primary nighttime residence is camping out or "squatting" in an unoccupied residential building without authorization by the owner (such as in an empty foreclosed house) would also be considered homeless.
- Persons living in substandard housing are not usually considered homeless, but DMH Housing considers these situations case by case. To be considered homeless, the substandard structure would have to be significantly uninhabitable by humans for multiple reasons: condemned by local government, lacking water and power, infested with vermin, and/or open to the elements.
"(ii) An individual or family living in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designated to provide temporary living arrangements (including congregate shelters, transitional housing, and hotels and motels paid for by charitable organizations or by federal, state, or local government programs for low-income individuals);"
Considerations:
- Persons living in a HUD-funded housing program known as a "Safe Haven" are also considered homeless. There are three such programs in Missouri as of 2012: Access House in Kansas City; the Haven in St. Joseph; and the Safe Haven in Kennett.
- Persons living in transitional housing programs are only considered homeless if their primary nighttime residence immediately prior to moving into the transitional housing program was a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, or an emergency shelter or other form of emergency housing. Persons entering transitional housing from an institutional setting, such as residential drug treatment, must have been in one of those two homeless settings ("street" or shelter) immediately prior to the institutional setting.
- Self-paid hotel and motel stays do not qualify as homelessness. Hotel and motel stays must be paid for by entities outside the person's normal network of resources, so stays paid for by family or friends also do not qualify.
"(iii) An individual who is exiting an institution where he or she resided for 90 days or less and who resided in an emergency shelter or place not meant for human habitation immediately before entering that institution."
- Considerations: "institution" includes a residential drug treatment program, jail, hospital, nursing home, and residential care facility.
The full text of the definition of homelessness is in the Federal Register, here.
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Documenting Homelessness for DMH's Shelter Plus Care Programs
HUD's regulations redefining homelessness also define specific requirements for documenting the homelessness situations described above. The link above to the Federal Register contains this information regarding documentation. DMH Housing's requirements for documenting homelessness in Shelter Plus Care applications is described below:
- For an individual or family with a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, provide a written eye-witness account from a case manager, outreach worker or other homeless services worker able to personally verify the Applicant’s street homelessness. Describe in as much detail as possible: include locations, dates, and in what way the situation constitutes a place not meant for human habitation. This document must be on agency letterhead, and must be signed and dated by the author.
- For an individual or family living in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designated to provide temporary living arrangements, provide a letter from the shelter facility verifying the date(s) of entry and/or exit and that the Applicant currently resides there; or instead of a letter from the shelter, you may provide a printout from a Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) showing recorded shelter stays. You must also provide a written observation by the case manager or homeless outreach worker verifying that the Applicant is homeless. This document must be on agency letterhead, and must be signed and dated by the author.
- For an individual or family living in a transitional housing program, provide a letter from the transitional program verifying the date of entry and current residence; and you must provide documentation that the Applicant’s housing immediately prior to the transitional program was either emergency shelter or a place not meant for human habitation (this can consist of either a letter from a shelter, an HMIS printout, or a written observation of Applicant’s former street homelessness) .
-
For an individual who is exiting an institution where he or she resided for 90 days or less and who resided in an emergency shelter or place not meant for human habitation immediately before entering that institution, provide a signed and dated verification from the institution staff that the applicant has resided there for ninety days or less and is about to exit the institution; and documentation that the Applicant’s housing immediately prior to the institutional facility was either emergency shelter or living in a place not meant for human habitation (this can consist of either a letter from the shelter, an HMIS printout, or a written observation of Applicant’s former street homelessness).
Who Is Chronically Homeless?
HUD's definition of chronic homelessness was most recently revised effective July 31, 2012, by an interim rule promulgated under the HEARTH Act. The text of the interim rule can be found here.
A chronically homelessness Applicant for Shelter Plus Care is a disabled individual, or a family with a disabled head of household, who is currently living in a place not meant for human habitation, an emergency shelter, or a Safe Haven. The Applicant must have experienced one or more of those types of homelessness continuously for at least one year, or at least four separate episodes of homelessness in the last three years.
An individual currently living in an institutional setting (such as a jail, drug treatment facility or hospital) for fewer than 90 days, and who otherwise has the homelessness history described above, is also chronically homeless. An individual or family currently residing in a transitional housing program is not chronically homeless.
An "episode" of homelessness has not been defined by HUD. DMH Housing generally defines an episode of homelessness as one week or more of living in one of the situations described above. Consecutive stays in different settings, such as moving from one shelter to another, are considered one episode. Episodes should be separated from each other by at least one week in order to be considered "separate" as described above.
Applications Processing
Applications for Shelter Plus Care may only be submitted to DMH Housing by case managers on behalf of clients receiving services from DMH or from DMH-contracted agencies. Applications are also accepted from the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) or agencies contracted with DHSS to provide services to people with disabilities related to AIDS/HIV and related diseases. DMH Housing cannot process applications received directly from persons in need of assistance.
The applicant’s case manager should fill out the SPC application jointly with the applicant, using information provided by both the applicant and by third parties to document the applicant's status. Send applications for Shelter Plus Care by fax to 573-526-7797.
Once received, the application is entered on a wait list. Each geographic area has one or more wait lists depending on how many grants are established in the area. Availability of SPC funds varies around the state, so time spent on a wait list will vary also.
When an applicant is approved for SPC assistance, the case manager and the applicant must attend a briefing at a local housing agency that acts as a client processing center for DMH. During the briefing, the applicant is given information about the rules of the SPC program, where and how to look for a rental unit, and their responsibilities as a future tenant. When the applicant locates a suitable unit, the unit is inspected to ensure that it meets HUD's housing quality standards.
Once the participant is housed, the household pays 30% of the household income toward rent, and SPC funds pay the remaining amount. A participant’s income includes, but is not limited to, employment income, assistance payments from SSI, SSDI, TANF or other mainstream resources, and any income from other adults living in the rental unit. If the household has no income at all, SPC pays 100% of that household's rent.
Shelter Plus Care participants must remain in case management while they receive Shelter Plus Care assistance. Case managers must assist participants in improving income through employment, where possible, or by helping participants to apply for mainstream assistance programs like Social Security. Increased income not only improves housing stability but also allows DMH Housing to house more people using SPC funds.
For detailed information about DMH’s Shelter Plus Care grants and how they are administered, see the DMH Housing Manual. For questions about Shelter Plus Care in specific areas of Missouri, please see the table, above, that shows the areas served and the staff members working with those areas.
Applying for Shelter Plus Care
NOTE Regarding the Notice of Client Rights in the Application for Shelter Plus Care: effective June 3, 2013, this form must be filled out by clients applying for DMH Shelter Plus Care assistance within the Joplin/Jasper & Newton Counties Continuum of Care. This change is noted in the Instructions and Checklist pages in the Application. There is no change to the contents of the Application itself.
A new version of the DMH Application for Shelter Plus Care was published on January 29, 2013. The updates to this version primarily affect Section 7, Income, and Attachment D, Verification of Chronic Homelessness; and are designed to improve data collection and usability. No definitions or conditions that affect eligibility have changed.
The link below is to the January 2013 version of the DMH Application for Shelter Plus Care. If you have a copy of an application that has an earlier date in the lower right corner of each page, please do not submit it -- you must download the latest version and use that.
Download the Missouri Department of Mental Health Application for Shelter Plus Care
If you need help downloading or filling out the application, email housing@dmh.mo.gov or call 573-526-3125; or call toll-free 800-364-9687 and ask to speak to someone in the Housing Unit. back to top
DMH Housing Manual
The Housing Manual sets out the policies and procedures the DMH Housing Unit follows in the administration of 44 HUD-funded Shelter Plus Care grants and the state-funded Rental Assistance Program (RAP). The Housing Manual is written primarily with case managers and processing center staff in mind. The public and potential applicants for housing assistance will find portions of it useful as well. It is written to make these programs as open and transparent as possible.
Using the Housing Manual
The Manual is designed to be used as an electronic document accessed via the Web. We don't recommend saving the document to your computer because you'll need to download a new version every time an update is made. It's also not recommended that you print the manual on paper. A paper copy will lack the navigation tools found in the electronic formats and the internal hyperlinking of chapter and section headings -- and it's over a hundred pages long, which is a lot of paper to print. It's most efficient to simply access the document via the DMH Web site when you need it.
As a reference work, use the PDF version; it's simpler to search and navigate. Every link in the PDF version is one-click, as opposed to two clicks in Word. If you need to copy forms or other material from the Manual for your own use, use the Word version if you want to preserve existing formatting. The Word version is password-protected and read-only.
Updates to the Housing Manual
DMH Housing will update the Housing Manual whenever changes in state or federal laws or regulations affect the contents; when DMH Housing modifies its own policies or procedures; or when a substantive correction is needed. Substantive changes will be highlighted in red for easier location, and the date of the most current version will be displayed above the download links below. If you notice an error or would like to suggest additional content, please contact the Housing Unit at housing@dmh.mo.gov.
Manual Updated February 9, 2012
DMH Housing published an updated version of the Housing Manual on February 9, 2012. The updates are numerous and broad in scope, so instead of highlighting every change in red, the headings of the affected sections are in red. The main changes include updating the DMH Housing staff contact information and list of grants (Introduction), updating the obligations of key parties (Chapter 1), and updating the definition of homelessness (Chapter 2).
Access the Housing Manual (most current version: February 9, 2012)
DMH Housing Manual - PDF format