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Welcome to the Program Design and Development Wiki

This site is designed to provide rapid access to the information and resources needed by service providers, advocates and communities in Westchester County, New York. Clicking on any of the links below will take you to a page with meeting notices and other information and resources relevant to each collaboration.

Breaking News

President Asks for $1 billion for National Housing Trust Fund Again, Provides Funding for Rental Assistance NEW

Westchester Housing Settlement

Astorino challenges HUD over loss of $7.4M grant NEW

Astorino Fighting for $7.4 Million in Funds Now Blocked by HUD NEW

Tax Watch: Westchester towns face brunt of Astorino's fair-housing fight NEW

County Sued Over Affordable Housing

Upcoming Events

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Collaborations

Westchester County Continuum of Care Partnership for the Homeless

This group coordinates all of the homeless housing and services providers in Westchester County, New York.

Homeless System Transformation Team

This team and it's workgroups are working to transform the current systems in place to increase accessibility of housing and services in Westchester for people in need.

Recovery Housing Network of Westchester

This group works to engage and house chemically dependent homeless adults in early stages of recovery.

DCMH Shelter Plus Care

The 9 agencies which administer Shelter Plus Care units as sub-grantees under the Westchester County Department of Community Mental Health meet regularly to improve program performance.

CoC Veterans Committee

For the service programs within Westchester County that work with Veterans to network and coordinate services. The focus of our efforts has been and will continue to be increasing the knowledge of services available to Veterans in our community.

Yonkers Coalition for Youth (YCFY)

Formerly Yonkers Juvenile Crime Enforcement Coalition (YJCEC), Yonkers Weed & Seed and Yonkers Drug Free Communities Coalition
This collaboration, facilitated by the Yonkers Police Department, is developing and implementing a coordinated Juvenile Justice Strategy and Action Plan to reduce violent juvenile crime in Yonkers, New York.

Yonkers Truancy Reduction Strategy Group (YTRSG)

This YCFY workgroup is implementing an innovative strategy to reduce chronic truancy in Yonkers.

Mt. Vernon Attendance Improvement Initiative (formerly known as MVTRSG)

This workgroup is replicating the YTRSG strategy to reduce chronic truancy in Mt. Vernon as well as addressing the issue of chronic suspensions.

White Plains Truancy Reduction Strategy Group (WPTRSG)

This workgroup is replicating the YTRSG strategy to reduce chronic truancy in White Plains.

Yonkers Continuum of Care for the Homeless

This group brings together all the homeless housing and service providers in Yonkers, New York funded with HUD Continuum of Care for the Homeless funding administered by the Municipal Housing Authority for the City of Yonkers.

Mount Vernon Continuum of Care for the Homeless

This group brings together all the homeless housing and service providers in Mount Vernon, New York funded with HUD Continuum of Care for the Homeless funding administered by the City of Mount Vernon.


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PD&D In The News

NYCLU Champions of Fair Housing Award

Anthony Wynne, a board member of the Lower Hudson Valley Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Westchester County Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry, introduces Karl Bertrand and presents him with a Champions of Fair Housing community service award for his lifetime of advocacy for the homeless in Westchester County, New York. The award was presented at the Lower Hudson Valley Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union's annual dinner on 5/16/11.

Karl Bertrand receiving a Champions of Fair Housing award from the Lower Hudson Valley Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union on 5-16-11 in recognition of his lifetime of advocacy for the homeless in Westchester County, New York. In this 3-minute video Karl opens up and gets a few laughs as he explains how he chose his life's work.

Stanley Schear Leadership Award

On 5/14/10 PD&D's founder and President Karl Bertrand received the fourth annual Stanley Schear Leadership Award for his work in providing shelters and services for homeless people in Westchester County, New York for more than 27 years. The award was made by the Senior Housing and Services Coalition of the Westchester County Department of Senior Programs and Services. His work to date has included co-founding the first shelter for the homeless in Yonkers, co-founding the Coalition for the Homeless of Westchester (the first countywide advocacy group for the homeless), developing the initial concept for the Bridge Fund eviction prevention program, co-chairing the Westchester Partnership for the Homeless, which coordinates planning and management of $10-12 million in annual Continuum of Care for the Homeless funding from HUD, and securing over $165 million in grant funding for local public and private programs benefiting the poor.

In his speech accepting the Stanley Schear Leadership award, Karl Bertrand tries to explain for the first time in public why he is an advocate for the homeless and the poor. He says writing and delivering this speech was more difficult than any other speech he's ever given, except for his mother's eulogy.

This Journal News article summarizes Karl Bertrand leading up to the award. One minor correction: He says he never said "most richest"!


WTFCAN Unsung Heroes Award

On 4/28/10 Karl Bertrand was awarded an "Unsung Heroes" award from the Westchester County Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect. The award was given for his work organizing local communities to address chronic truancy by enforcing mandatory education laws and offering supportive services. In Yonkers, NY this program cut chronic truancy by 18.6% in the first two years, which basically means that hundreds of kids who were spiraling toward dropping out, delinquency and a lifetime of poverty, are now going back to school more often. The man handing him the award is Westchester's newly elected County Executive Robert P. Astorino, who is in the process of grappling with a projected $160 million budget deficit. In this 90-second acceptance speech, Mr. Bertrand challenges County Executive Astorino to expand this truancy prevention effort countywide.

The award is being presented by Kathie Halas, Executive Director of the Child Care of Westchester and co-chair of the Westchester Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect.


Evidence-Based Targeting

This blog discusses Karl Bertrand's presentation on Evidence-Based Targeting at the NYS DCJS 2008 statewide-conference on juvenile crime prevention.

In this video developed for a regional Weed & Seed training sponsored by the City of Yonkers, NY, Karl Bertrand describes Evidence-Based Targeting, a new concept developed in Yonkers that allows communities to use objective data to target limited juvenile crime prevention resources to the specific youth who need them most, rather than allocating resources less efficiently using traditional neighborhood-based targeting that essentially relies on stereotypes of race and class to identify youth who are most at risk.


Yonkers Juvenile Crime Strategy and Action Plan


Homeless Advocacy: "Beds Not Chairs"

In 2007 Westchester County instituted an ill-conceived plan to make emergency overnight shelters for the homeless replace their cots with chairs, based on the wrong-headed notion that what we needed to do to help homeless people put their lives back together was to increase their suffering. The Westchester Coalition for the Hungry and the Homeless convened a rally in White Plains, NY on 10/25/07 to oppose the plan. Karl Bertrand was one of the speakers. Shortly thereafter the plan was quietly rescinded.

Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner's blog published this guest commentary from Karl Bertrand on 10/23/07 describing the need for the upcoming Beds Not Chairs rally.


New Models of Homeless Services

This overview of the new model of homelessness prevention being piloted in Westchester with HPRP funds from HUD was submitted to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness for potential inclusion in the new Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness.

This overview of the Bridge Fund cites Karl Bertrand's pivotal role in 1991 in helping develop the initial plan for the Bridge Fund - one of the New York metropolitan area's most innovative and effective eviction prevention programs.

This 3/30/2010 article in the White Plains Times describes a conference convened by the Westchester Partnership for the Homeless in which Karl Bertrand described the changes in homeless services mandated by the recently passed HEARTH Act, and laid out a strategic vision for transforming homeless services in Westchester.


The Pre-History of PD&D

This New York Times article from April 10, 1983 describes how The Sharing Community, originally begun as a winter-only overnight shelter, had decided to become a year-round program providing 24-hour shelter, meals, and advocacy.

This New York Times article from July 12, 1987 focuses on a Coalition for the Homeless of Westchester report that over one million meals were provided during the preceding year by emergency food programs in Westchester County, NY. This represented a 63% increase over the preceding year, with ten new food pantries opening and local soup kitchens doubling the number of meals annually served.

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PD&D Presentations

Right Under Our Eyes: Poverty, Hunger and Homelessness in Westchester County NEW

This is a presentation Karl Bertrand made to middle school students at the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester in Hartsdale, NY


Mount Vernon Chronic Truancy Reduction Initiative: How an Inner-City School District Cut Absenteeism by 19.8% in Two Years - With No Additional Grant Funding '

In this presentation, Karl Bertrand describes how an inner-city school district (Mount Vernon, NY) cut total absenteeism district-wide by 19.8% in two years - without any additional grant funding. He begins by summarizing what the district did to address chronic truancy, and then he describes eight major accomplishments, including an analysis of the 19.8% reduction in total absenteeism achieved within two years. See also the video of Karl Bertrand delivering this presentation, divided into two parts, found at Truancy Initiative-Part 1: What We Did and MV Truancy Initiative-Part 2: What We've Accomplished.


Why Truancy Matters

In this brief presentation Karl Bertrand gives a rapid-fire overview of the many ways that chronic truancy negatively impacts individuals and communities. Understanding these diverse negative impacts is important because they serve as incentives for mobilizing different groups of stakeholders to support local truancy prevention efforts. See also the video of Karl Bertrand delivering this presentation found at Why Truancy Matters


This Homeless Advocate Supports Closing Two Shelters

This Word document contains the text of the 3-minute testimony Karl Bertrand made at the Westchester County Board of Legislator's budget hearings in Yonkers on November 17, 2010. A life-long advocate for the homeless, he testified in support of the proposed closing of two homeless shelters, which are no longer needed because of Westchester County's success in reducing homelessness by 55%. "Supporting a progressive agenda for helping the homeless does not mean that we need to continue funding empty shelter beds just because we needed them 20 years ago. In fact, the progressive agenda for serving the homeless, as mandated by the HEARTH Act passed by Congress in 2008 and endorsed by HUD and all of the leading national homeless advocacy organizations is to move AWAY from shelters and end prolonged homelessness by concentrating resources on 1) preventing evictions and 2) rapidly rehousing people when they do become homeless....[Westchester County] has achieved this reduction by investing money in eviction prevention, mobile Care Coordination for the mentally ill, and rent supplements. We cannot afford to continue to make these wise and progressive investments in helping the homeless if we fritter away our resources by continuing to fund empty shelter beds that are no longer needed."


Overview of Housing Resources

This Powerpoint outlines the presentation Karl Bertrand made at the "A Roof over Your Head: Housing Resources & Solutions for Westchester County Residents" conference on November 10, 2010, which was co-sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Westchester and the Westchester County Department of Community Mental Health. After several presentations had been made on specialized supportive housing resources available for the mentally ill in Westchester County, NY, Karl Bertrand was charged with providing a brief, simple and clear overview of all other major housing resources available in Westchester. Faced with describing a system that was diverse and fragmented, he boiled it down to the major programs that could help make housing affordable in one of America's most expensive housing markets, and ended by identifying the single best place to start seeking help for four major kinds of common housing-related problems.


Organizational Survival Strategies

This workshop for executive directors and other senior managers offered an incisive analysis of the financial threats facing nonprofits today, and identified a host of specific approaches to maintaining cash flow, matching mission to budget and surviving the great recession. Experienced management consultant Karl Bertrand presented and discussed specific strategies to ameliorate the effects of public budget shortfalls.


Evidence-Based Targeting

Karl Bertrand delivered a presentation on "Evidence-Based Targeting: A New Approach to Juvenile Crime Prevention" at the 38th Annual Conference of the Association of New York State Youth Bureaus on October 27, 2008. This workshop focused on the new concept of Evidence-Based Targeting. Using 16 years of data from Yonkers, PD&D measured the impact of specific risk factors on juvenile crime. This workshop taught participants to use a “Pyramid of Risk” to identify youth at highest risk for juvenile delinquency, target limited resources, and magnify potential impact on reducing juvenile crime. Karl Bertrand has also made presentations on Evidence-Based Targeting at recent conferences sponsored by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, the New York State Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Juvenile Delinquency Prevention.


Preventing Chronic Truancy

Karl Bertrand made this presentation at the 10/23/2009 "Tackling Truancy with Limited Resources: Concrete Actions School Districts Can Implement Now" workshop sponsored by the Westchester Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect.


New Models of Homeless Services

Karl Bertrand made this presentation describing the new models of homeless housing and services needed in Westchester County, NY at the 3/23/2010 HEARTH Act Symposium co-sponsored by the Westchester Partnership for the Homeless and Grace Church Community Center.

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Advocacy

100,000 Homes NEW
100,000 Homes for 100,000 Individuals and Families. The only lasting solution to homelessness is permanent housing.

Power to the Parent NEW
Resource for parents to protect teens from drug & alcohol abuse.

Invisible People NEW
Since its launch in November 2008, InvisiblePeople.tv has leveraged the power of video and the massive reach of social media to share the compelling, gritty, and unfiltered stories of homeless people from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. The vlog (video blog) gets up close and personal with veterans, mothers, children, layoff victims and others who have been forced onto the streets by a variety of circumstances. Each week, their on InvisiblePeople.tv, and high traffic sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, proving to a global audience that while they may often be ignored, they are far from invisible.

Hunger Action Network of New York State (HANNYS)
The Hunger Action Network of New York State is a statewide anti-hunger coalition that combines grassroots organizing at the local level with state level research, education and advocacy to address the root causes of hunger, including poverty.

Supportive Housing Network of New York State
The Supportive Housing Network of New York represents over 150 nonprofit organizations that develop and operate supportive housing and is the only supportive housing membership organization in New York State.

Coalition for the Homeless
Coalition for the Homeless is the nation's oldest advocacy and direct service organization helping homeless men, women, and children. We are dedicated to the principle that decent shelter, sufficient food, affordable housing, and the chance to work for a living wage are fundamental rights in a civilized society. Since our inception in 1981, the Coalition has worked through litigation, public education, and direct services to ensure that these goals are realized.

National Alliance to End Homelessness
The National Alliance to End Homelessness is a nonpartisan, mission-driven organization committed to preventing and ending homelessness in the United States. We are a leading voice on the issue of homelessness. The Alliance analyzes policy and develops pragmatic, cost-effective policy solutions. We work collaboratively with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to build state and local capacity, leading to stronger programs and policies that help communities achieve their goal of ending homelessness. We provide data and research to policymakers and elected officials in order to inform policy debates and educate the public and opinion leaders nationwide.

Westchester Coalition for the Hungry and Homeless
WCHH shares information and technical services with providers, connects volunteers to programs needing their help, promotes legislative action for systematic changes and collects data on the hungry and homeless that it provides as an information resource to government agencies.

Housing Action Council
The Housing Action Council provides technical assistance, grants, and advocacy to increase and improve housing opportunities for low - and moderate - income households and special needs populations throughout the Hudson Valley Region.


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Resources

2013 Federal, State and County Elected Officials Contact Information NEW
List of names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses (most hyperlinked) for maintaining contact with elected officials.

Chart of the HUD and USDA affordable housing and community development requests included in the President’s FY14 budget NEW

Westchester Housing Market


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