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
HUD Enacts New Definition of Homelessness Based on HEARTH Act
On January 4, 2012, HUD published new regulations in the Federal Register that operationalize a revised definition of homelessness that was created by the HEARTH Act. The new definition applies to HUD's homeless assistance programs, among which is Shelter Plus Care (SPC). It expands the former definition to include individuals and families who are "literally homeless" (living in shelters or sleeping in places not meant for human habitation); individuals and families at imminent risk of losing their housing; individuals and families fleeing domestic and sexual violence; and individuals and families who are considered homeless under other federal statutes.
NOTE: Although the new definition became effective in January 2012, its application is limited by language in HUD's 2011 Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Available (NOFA). Section III.E.2.d(3) of the NOFA states, "The only persons who may be served by permanent housing projects are those who come from the streets, emergency shelters, Safe Havens, or transitional housing. Persons coming from transitional housing must have originally come from the streets or emergency shelter." Therefore, despite the additional categories of homelessness added to the definition by the new regulation, DMH can still only serve individuals and families who are "literally homeless," as described in Category 1 of the new definition, with its Shelter Plus Care programs. As of February 2012, DMH Housing does not know when or if the complete definition will be applicable to its Shelter Plus Care programs.
The new homeless definition also does not apply to any of the several DMH Shelter Plus Care programs that assist chronically homeless persons exclusively. The HUD definition of chronic homelessness still limits homelessness to episodes of staying in emergency shelters and living in places not meant for human habitation, so the categories of homelessness added by the HEARTH Act cannot be used to establish chronic homelessness.
For details of the new definition, see the section, "Who Is Eligible for Shelter Plus Care," below.
To download a revised Application for Shelter Plus Care that addresses the new definition of homelessness, see the section, "Applying for Shelter Plus Care," below.
What Is Shelter Plus Care?
Shelter Plus Care (SPC) is a HUD-funded rental assistance program that brings together permanent housing and mental health support services for people who are both homeless and disabled. The goal of Shelter Plus Care 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 40 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 (current as of February 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 |
Edwin Cooper |
Branson |
Stone and Taney Counties |
17 |
|
| Central Missouri | Cole, Miller, Callaway and Cooper Counties | 11 | Edwin Cooper |
Farmington |
St. Francois County |
21 |
|
Hannibal |
Ralls and Marion Counties |
22 |
Edwin Cooper |
Jefferson-Franklin |
Jefferson and Franklin Counties |
9 |
Edwin Cooper |
Kirksville |
Adair County |
14 |
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, Gasconade and Camden Counties |
18 |
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 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 below for the definition of homelessness as revised effective January 4, 2012); 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.
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 is expected to be long-continuing or of indefinite duration; substantially impedes an individual’s ability to live independently; could be improved by the provision of more suitable housing conditions; and 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. In order to be certified as disabled, DMH requires that a person with the professional credentials to legally make the assessment described in this paragraph sign a form in the application for Shelter Plus Care stating that the applicant has a disability. Case managers cannot make this assessment unless they have a professional credential allowing them to do so. For the complete list of persons with professional credentials who can make this assessment, see the DMH Application for Shelter Plus Care, Attachment A, "Verification of Disability."
Who Is Homeless?
HUD significantly altered its definition of homelessness through new regulations that became effective on January 4, 2012, based on the HEARTH Act. The new regulations established four categories of homelessness; however, only individuals and families described in Category 1 are eligible for Shelter Plus Care assistance. As of February 2012, DMH Housing does not know when or if all the categories of homelessness expressed in the new definition will apply to Shelter Plus Care.
Category 1: individuals and families who lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. This includes:
- 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
- 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).
- 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.
Category 2: individuals and families who will imminently lose their primary nighttime residence. This includes:
- Persons who are about to be evicted from a rental unit via a court order obtained legally by the owner (i.e., a simple demand or notice by an owner that the tenant has to leave is not adequate; the owner has to have obtained a court order);
- Persons who lack the resources to continue to self-pay for a stay in a hotel or motel; and
- Persons who are no longer being allowed to stay in housing by the owner or renter of the housing. In effect, this refers to persons who are temporarily staying in over-crowded and doubled-up situations ("couch surfing") and who have been told to leave by the person with whom they're staying.
Category 3: a single person under the age of 25 (a "youth") or a family (at least one adult and one minor) who doesn't qualify as homeless under this definition but who qualifies as homeless under other federal statutes. Along with qualifying as homeless under other federal statutes, the person or family:
- Must have not had a lease, ownership interest, or occupancy agreement in permanent housing at any time during the 60 days immediately preceding the date of application for homeless assistance;
- Must have experienced persistent instability as measured by two moves or more during the 60-day period immediately preceding the date of applying for homeless assistance; and
- Can be expected to continue in such status for an extended period of time because of chronic disabilities; chronic physical health or mental health conditions; substance addiction; histories of domestic violence or childhood abuse (including neglect); the presence of a child or youth with a disability; or two or more barriers to employment, which include the lack of a high school degree or General Education Development (GED), illiteracy, low English proficiency, a history of incarceration or detention for criminal activity, and a history of unstable employment.
The "other federal statutes" referred to above consist of:
- Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (42 U.S.C. 5701 et seq.)
- Head Start Act (42 U.S.C. 9831 et seq.)
- Subtitle N of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (42 U.S.C. 14043e et seq.)
- Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 254b)
- Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.)
- Section 17 of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. 1786)
- Subtitle B of title VII of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 11431 et seq.)
Category 4: Individuals and families attempting to flee domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, or other dangerous or life-threatening conditions that relate to violence against the individual or a family member, including a child, that has either taken place within the individual’s or family’s primary nighttime residence or has made the individual or family afraid to return to their primary nighttime residence. To qualify, the person can have no other residence; and must lack the resources or support networks, e.g., family, friends, and faith-based or other social networks, to obtain other permanent housing.
HUD's official publication of the above information can be found in the Federal Register, here.
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 defines chronic homelessness as either (1) an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has been continuously homeless for a year or more, OR (2) an unaccompanied individual with a disabling condition who has had at least four distinct and sustained episodes of homelessness in the past three years. "Homeless" in this case refers exclusively to a person staying in emergency shelters or sleeping in places not meant for human habitation.
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. Applications for Shelter Plus Care are generally accepted by fax at 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
A new version of the DMH Application for Shelter Plus Care was published on February 9, 2012. This version of the application adopts HUD's language defining literal homelessness, which was published in the Federal Register on January 4, 2012, as part of new regulations defining homelessness for HUD homeless assistance programs. See Attachment C, "Verification of Homelessness," in the application.
The link below is to the February 2012 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 (or no date at all), 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
DMH Housing will continue to accept the November 2011 version of the application until March 31, 2012. As of April 1, 2012, only the current version will be accepted. If we receive an earlier version on or after April 1, 2012, we'll contact you by phone and ask you to re-apply using the correct form.
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 40 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 (2.6 mb)