City Using Proven Model to Address Needs of Coronado Park Residents
ALBUQUERQUE- City departments and community partners have been conducting extensive outreach to residents of Coronado Park to ensure that each person has their needs identified and met. Using an intensive case conferencing approach developed by partners along with the Family and Community Services Department, agencies are pooling resources and working together to find housing options that best fit an individual’s needs.
When Mayor Keller announced the closure of Coronado Park, the Department of Family and Community Services, Albuquerque Community Safety, and outreach teams from our partner agencies increased their intensive outreach and services to residents of the park. Consecutive days of outreach last week resulted in 29 people voluntarily leaving the park: 21 people received motel vouchers and entered a pathway to housing, four were transported the Albuquerque Opportunity Center men’s shelter, two were transported to a hospital to receive medical care, and two people requested assistance to return to their home city outside Albuquerque. Outreach teams surveyed 110 park residents to understand the array of their individual needs and barriers they face and will add upwards of 70 new people to the HMIS Coordinated Entry system, a shared system between homeless service providers to fill openings in supportive housing programs. Using this data, the City and partners are applying a proven case management model to identify the housing pathway for each park resident.
Intensive case conferencing between the City, housing providers, and case managers establishes the best housing match to meet an individual or family’s needs. This model was developed for the Wellness-2 hotel for families to bring together agency participants with different realms of experience, perspectives, and knowledge of resources. At Wellness-2, the additional participation of a nearby Albuquerque Public School and a representative from Metro Court have been key to addressing a family’s entire slate of needs in unison. The data-driven approach has led to permanent housing placement for 29 percent of families at the hotel.
Applying this model to Coronado Park ensures that residents have the best chance of success on their pathway to housing.