Housing & MCH Resources

• Continuum of Care (CoC): The CoC Program is designed to assist individuals (including unaccompanied youth) and families experiencing homelessness and provide the services needed to help such individuals move into transitional and permanent housing, with the goal of long-term stability.
  More broadly, the CoC Program is designed to promote community-wide planning and strategic use of resources to address homelessness; improve coordination and integration with mainstream resources and other programs targeted to people experiencing homelessness; improve data collection and performance measurement; and allow each community to tailor its programs to the strengths and challenges in assisting homeless individuals and families within that community. Find your local/regional CoC lead organizations here.

• Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS): HMIS is a local information technology system used to collect client-level data and data on the provision of housing and services to individuals and families at risk of and experiencing homelessness. Each local or regional Continuum of Care is responsible for administering an HMIS and complying with HUD’s data collection, management, and reporting standards. You can review the HMIS data standards to see what types of data your local CoCs are collecting. You can also provide feedback on the HMIS data standards to suggest improvements related to MCH data needs here.

• National Low Income Housing Coalition State Data and Partners Overview: Explore state profiles of affordable housing needs including information on how to connect with your state’s National Low Income Housing Advocacy Organizer.
• State Housing Finance Agencies: State housing finance agencies (HFAs) play a central role in the nation’s affordable housing system. HFAs deliver financing to make possible the purchase, development, and rehabilitation of affordable homes and rental apartments for low- and middle-income households. Every state HFA was created by its state to meet its particular affordable housing needs.
• Public Housing Data Dashboard: The Public Housing (PH) Dashboard shows a variety of data points and visualizations relevant to the Public Housing program at HUD. It displays resident characteristics, unit occupancy trends, scores from the Public Housing Assessment program, funding information, eligibility information, and energy data. This information can be sorted and filtered by Region, State, Field Office, and Public Housing Authority. You can also find local public housing agency contact information here.

• Community Action Agencies: Community Action Agencies (CAA) are local private and public non-profit organizations that carry out the Community Action Program (CAP), which was founded by the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act to fight poverty. The Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) is the agencies’ core federal funding and agencies also operate a variety of grants that come from federal, state and local sources. These grants vary widely among agencies, although most CAAs operate Head Start programs, which focus on early child development, and many operate Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) utility grants and the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) funded through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
  Each CAA is governed by a board of directors consisting of at least one-third low-income community members, one-third public officials, and up to one-third private sector leaders. This board structure is defined by federal statute and is known as a tripartite board. There are currently over 1,000 CAAs, engaged in a broad range of activities. Find your local CAAs here. Each state also has a state association of CAAs, which can be located here.
• Community Care Hubs: Adopting the Community Care Hub (CCH) approach can help CBOs and health care payers and providers increase a community’s capacity to address health-related social needs. The hub centralizes administrative functions and operational infrastructure. This infrastructure includes contracting with health care organizations, payment operations, management of referrals, service delivery fidelity and compliance, technology, information security, data collection, and reporting. The hub has trusted relationships with, and understands the capacities of, local community-based and healthcare organizations and also fosters cross-sector collaborations that practice community governance with local voices by engaging with CBOs and the individuals they serve.

• Innovation Hub: AMCHP Innovation Hub is an online platform that provides maternal and child health (MCH) professionals and advocates with resources and tools to explore, build, and share effective work grounded in evidence that contributes to improving the health and well-being of MCH populations and their communities. It is home to the MCH Innovations Database, a searchable repository of “what’s working” in the maternal and child health field (also known as practice-based evidence) that includes both practices and policies.
• MCH Evidence Center Housing Instability Evidence Accelerator: The What Works Evidence Accelerators provide background information and a summary of effective strategies to advance each of the NPM topic areas, including housing instability. A summary video on strategies to improve MCH housing instability is also available.

• National Alliance to End Homelessness: The Alliance is a nonprofit organization committed to preventing and ending homelessness in the United States. The Alliance provides resources and programming to build knowledge around what works to end homelessness, improve policy in support of solutions, and enhance capacity for communities, providers, and public agencies. They have a training center with options for self-paced and live trainings.
• Enterprise Community Partners: Enterprise Community Partners is a national affordable housing nonprofit that seeks to increase the supply of affordable homes, support residents and strengthening communities to make upward mobility possible. Enterprise supports community development organizations, invests in housing and communities, and advances housing policy at every level of government.
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: HUD administers programs that provide housing and community development assistance, including the Strong Families Initiative,
• HHS Administration for Community Living
  • The Housing and Services Resource Center implements a federally coordinated approach to providing resources, program guidance, training, and technical assistance to public housing authorities and housing providers; state Medicaid, disability, aging, and behavioral health agencies; the aging and disability networks; homeless services organizations and networks; health care systems and providers; and tribal organizations.
  • The Housing and Services Partnership Accelerator supports states in developing or expanding innovative housing-related supports and services for Medicaid-eligible people with disabilities and older adults who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

These organizations can support you in developing, implementing, and/or evaluating MCH housing programs and policies!

• Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs
• National Academy for State Health Policy
• National Association of County & City Health Officials
• National Conference of State Legislatures
• Public Health Law Center
• National Healthy Start Association
• CityMatCH
• MCH Evidence Center
• National MCH Workforce Development Center