CoC Community Standards
The CoC Community Standards are meant to assist the Chicago CoC by offering best practices that can be used by homeless service providers and funders. They are designed to comply with the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act and guide the operation of programs that address homelessness in Chicago. They are reviewed and updated annually.
Approved Standards and Documents
Participant Eligibility Documentation
Program eligibility and the required documentation vary based on both project type and funding source. The following guide lists the documentation required to accept participants into homeless housing and services, broken down by funding source. This resource can be used to:
- Understand the documentation required by funding source for common Chicago homelessness programs
- Ensure compliance with funder requirements, including when using multiple sources of funding
- Reduce necessary documentation requests; lower the burden placed on applicants to access housing and ease the administrative load for agency staff.
CoC Performance Management Plan
The CoC Performance Management Plan describes how the Chicago Continuum of Care (CoC) plans to drive performance improvement in both individual projects and the system as a whole. The plan is informed by a continuous quality improvement framework, the collective impact approach, and a commitment to data-driven decision-making.
CoC Program Monitoring
The goals of Chicago Continuum of Care Program Monitoring are to:
- Proactively assist projects with efforts to comply with Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulations. Although CoC program monitoring does not exhaustively address all HUD program requirements, this process addresses areas that HUD prioritizes.
- Provide guidance and technical assistance opportunities to CoC-funded projects.
- Help resolve performance concerns related to policies, procedures, and outcomes.
- Ensure there is consistency in how agencies and projects implement their CoC-funded programs.
If you have any questions about CoC Program Monitoring, please contact Jennifer Fabbrini at jfabbrini@allchicago.org.
CoC Performance Action Approach
Through its role as the Collaborative Applicant, All Chicago may facilitate a process to take action to improve poor performance or noncompliance within CoC-funded projects. The CoC Performance Action Approach describes the process that is followed in such instances.
Technical Assistance (TA) Resource Library
All Chicago provides technical assistance to agencies within the Chicago CoC to aid learning and help resolve identified needs or issues. These resources have been developed or accumulated by All Chicago, and they relate to broadly applying best practices, policies, standards, and regulations.
Financial Monitoring
All Chicago will use the following policies and tools for financial monitoring.
If you have any questions about financial monitoring, please contact the CoC Programs Team at cocprograms@allchicago.org.
CoC Financial Monitoring Policies and Tools
CoC Letters of Support Policy
Many grant applications encourage or require applicants to obtain a letter of support from the Continuum of Care to be considered for funding. As the Collaborative Applicant (CA), All Chicago administers the process to issue letters of support on behalf of the Chicago CoC. The Chicago CoC’s policy for providing a letter of support ensures that the CA has the necessary information about the agency and project to evaluate whether it aligns with the CoC’s policies and priorities and receives the information with enough time to evaluate and issue the letter of support.
This policy directs the CA to receive requests for letters of support, review the submitted information, determine whether a letter of support should be issued, and produce the letter of support on Chicago CoC letterhead signed by a leader of the Collaborative Applicant team at All Chicago.
