Welcome to the My Town Cares webpage. This page is a resource for municipal employees seeking information on how to address homelessness in your community.

The Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness has joined forces with the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and Sustainable CT to launch a statewide effort to engage towns and cities in efforts to end homelessness. The campaign offers technical assistance to towns seeking to address immediate issues relating to homelessness and build local capacity to engage in regional efforts to end homelessness. Our goal is to support all 169 towns in engaging with regional homelessness prevention efforts.

CCEH Training and Technical Assistance

CCEH offers technical assistance to towns in resolving issues relating to homelessness and pursuing Sustainable CT certification in this action area. Please reach out to Carl Asikainen at casikainen@cceh.org if you would like assistance.

CCM’s Mayors Task Force and Municipal Working Group

CCM has convened a Mayors Task Force to build the municipal response to homelessness. Please reach out to Brian O’Connor at CCM if your mayor or first selectman is interested in participating in the task force.

Sustainable CT’s Homelessness Prevention Category

We encourage towns to pursue certification in the Effective and Compassionate Homelessness Prevention action category launched in January of 2021. Sustainable CT offers a scorecard that your town can use to demonstrate concrete actions you are taking to address homelessness locally and region. The Sustainable CT homelessness category includes six key action areas:

1. Increase Public Awareness and Support for Efforts to End Homelessness. Raise public awareness about homelessness and empower residents and other stakeholders with strategies to address and end homelessness. Through this action step, you can receive credit for passing a municipal resolution issuing a call-to-action to take action to prevent and end homelessness locally, for developing online resources for town residents seeking information on how to seek or offer assistance, and for organizing one or more community conversations or forums annually with a broad group of stakeholders to discuss homelessness in your community or region.
2. Strengthen Municipal Workforce Capacity to Address Homelessness. Develop an informed and coordinated response to homelessness within the municipality. Through this action step, you can receive credit for designating and training a municipal representative on homeless services in your municipality, and developing a municipal Task Force to address homelessness, or use your Sustainability Team or other existing municipal group. N.B.: If your town is ready to designate a Homeless Prevention Lead please click here to fill out this brief form.
3. Collect and Share Homelessness Data. Collect information on all individuals and families in your municipality experiencing literal homelessness, including unsheltered homelessness. Share information on residents experiencing homelessness in your municipality using the data collection form provided by the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness (CCEH). Click here, here, and here to access Youtube tutorials for conducting your local data collection effort.
4. Coordinate Municipal Services to Address Homelessness. Work with your municipality’s Coordinated Access Network (CAN) to enable a standardized assessment and referral process to connect people experiencing a housing crisis or homelessness with community resources. Depending on your community, collaboration with the CAN could include designating point-people between the municipality and the CAN and/or formalizing how the municipality will participate in CAN operations and decision-making.
5. Provide or Mobilize Resources to Address Homelessness. Hold a crowdfunding campaign to provide diversion and rapid exit funds to people experiencing or at imminent risk of homelessness in your region’s Coordinated Access Network (CAN) or in Connecticut statewide, ensure that individuals experiencing literal homelessness within your municipality have locations where they can safely access services and stay 24 hours a day (especially in extreme weather), and identify and help coordinate funding to address and prevent homelessness.
6. Improve Outcomes for People Experiencing Homelessness. Reduce arrests and hospitalizations and increase shelter diversion, support services, employment, and permanent housing opportunities for people experiencing homelessness. Please note that the criteria for this action category are under development for future certification cycles.

We encourage you to visit Sustainable CT’s website to learn more about the scorecard and how your town can seek certification.

More Info on How to Conduct Your Unsheltered Count.

CCEH now offers an app that municipal employees can use to enter data on people experiencing homelessness. Clients identified in this way will be matched with services. Below are videos that offer short tutorials to help you download the data collection App onto your iOS or Android devices. Here are steps that you should complete to conduct your unsheltered count.

1. Watch this overview of how the data collection effort works.
2. Download the web app to your device. We offer separate tutorials for IOS and Android.
3. Register for the web app by clicking here.