Engagement

The successful applicant shall identify unsheltered locations throughout the City of Newark that are frequented and/or inhabited by residents without addresses. The outreach team will be required to treat individuals with dignity, respect and professionalism.

The outreach team shall gather basic identifying information, as well as information pertaining to income, benefits, health, and mental health status. Also, the outreach team shall assess individuals for chronic homelessness.

The outreach team shall make every attempt to determine an individual’s city/county of origin. Non-Newark residents (individuals for whom a Newark footprint cannot be detected) shall be diverted to their originating municipality/county/country for service linkages. Newark residents shall be offered access and transportation to City-designated shelters, provided with food, essential hygiene items, clothing, contact information for the outreach team, and required intensive case management services to be conducted by the Respondent.

Respondent will provide a warm hand-off of Newark residents to the City-contracted shelter providers, coordinating with the Office of Homeless services to ensure availability of beds and entry and intake hours before arrival at respective shelters, unless expressly agreed upon by Respondent and Office of Homeless Services.

The outreach team shall distribute items necessary to facilitate engagement, including but not limited to hygiene kits, PPE, food, water, clothing, and referral agency’s contact information.

Respondent must administer short-term needs assessment to determine factors that will affect next steps in emergency placement and eventual housing procedures. Additionally respondent will be responsible for follow-up to ensure that post-placement client is formally connected to shelter provider for ongoing case management.

Respondent must be prepared to work collaboratively with Office of Homeless Services contracted agencies on specific client cases to ensure clients are successful

Diversion

Respondent will include homeless diversion screening at intake to ensure that those with alternative resources will not be accessing the homeless system.

Respondent must provide transportation for unsheltered individuals or families who are residents of surrounding municipalities that end up in Newark. Respondents must offer to return those individuals or families back to the municipality’s social services or health department or a close contact of the individual within a 20-mile radius of Newark’s Penn Station.

Respondent shall provide one-way bus tickets for those individuals and families arriving in the City of Newark and becoming homeless that desire to return to their municipality/county that is outside of the 20-mile radius of Newark’s Penn Station. Respondent must ensure that individuals and families are transferred with a warm-hand off to a relative or other party at the location to receive the individual.

Please provide a detailed narrative description of your proposed services. In your answer, include responses to the following questions:

1. What is the overall structure of your proposed program? Describe when you will be ready to commence services. Please attach a timeline.

2. Describe how your proposed services will contribute to the goal of preventing or ending homelessness.

3. How will your proposed services identify and engage prospective unsheltered individuals and/or families?

4. Describe your program staffing and experiences.

5. Detail the number of individuals and families your program intends to engage and serve over a seven-day period and what services they may receive.

6. Describe the follow-up you will conduct, including the time period in which they will occur.

7. Describe the outreach and engagement case management model, including any diversion practices for non-Newark residents that you will utilize for clients.

8. Describe how you plan to coordinate with other homeless outreach teams and service providers to avoid duplication of efforts and more effectively and efficiently utilize team resources. Include information on any specific areas that you intend to target your outreach efforts.

9. Describe how you plan to transport persons engaged through the program’s street outreach to shelter or other services as appropriate.

References

Respondent shall provide a minimum of three (3) references that are using services of the type proposed in this RFP. Please provide the entity’s name, location where services were provided, contact persons with titles and contact numbers.

Transportation/Vehicle/Driver Requirements

Respondent must provide daily transportation for unsheltered individuals and families living in cars, parks, abandoned buildings, buses, train stations, airport, campgrounds, streets, doorways, under bridges, railroad trellises and other areas in the City to shelters and to other supportive service providers.

Respondent must specify in the bid response the make, model and VIN of properly licensed vehicle owned or leased by Respondent to be used for transport.

Respondent must provide a clean copy of driver’s abstract, dated no more than thirty (30) days from submission of proposal, for the individual(s) driving the vehicle for purposes of this program.

All vehicles must be maintained in a safe operating condition and must have a current inspection by the State of New Jersey.

Respondent vehicle shall comply with all law relating to transportation of a disabled person, or respondent shall advise in their proposal how they will accommodate transportation of a disabled unsheltered person. (Provide previous experience where applicable.)

The respondent shall provide assurance that interior cleanliness of the vehicles will be maintained on a daily basis. Daily attention should be given to sweeping floors, removal of trash, and disinfected for scabies, bed bugs, lice or any other infectious mites or insects that may be transported. In addition, daily attention is required for disinfecting the vehicle, interior and exterior, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The exterior of the vehicle should be washed at least monthly.

All drivers used for this program shall comply with all road and safety regulations as set forth by any federal, state and municipal policy, law, statute or ordinance as it may relate directly to the safe operation of a vehicle used in public transportation of unsheltered individuals and families.

Respondent shall staff and deploy one qualified driver (proof of qualifications required; See abstract requirement above), one LSW or person with a higher clinical degree, and one qualified outreach specialist (proof of qualifications required) to assure outreach and engagement of unsheltered individuals and families is continuous and reliable. The City is seeking to deploy only one vehicle with two persons (if driver is either the social worker or outreach specialist) throughout the term of the contract.

Respondent’s driver and support staff shall have competency in physically driving and intensive case management of unsheltered individuals and families in order to make an assessment and determine the best safe place for drop-off.

Respondent shall provide a copy of the driver’s valid license issued by the State of New Jersey (or a reciprocal state) authorizing such person to operate the vehicle to which he or she is assigned.

Respondent shall hold the driver responsible for the safe loading and unloading of his or her vehicle at every pick-up and drop-off.

Respondent shall demonstrate driver-passenger professionalism.

Respondent must provide a coronavirus plan by which it details daily disinfection procedures and safe spacing of individuals in order to prevent spread.

Respondent shall not knowingly permit staff and passengers to smoke in the vehicle, not to drink any intoxicating beverage or be under the influence of drugs or alcohol while operating vehicle or being transported in the vehicle.

Respondent shall be responsible for hiring and discharging personnel employed by respondent to perform its obligations hereunder. However, provided that the City shall have the right, at its sole discretion, to require respondent to remove from service under this agreement any staff providing services that are deemed unsuitable for the performance of the transportation or case management services, and the City shall make such request in writing, detailing the reasons for the request.

Budget/Budget Narrative

Respondent must provide a scope of services for the proposed outreach and engagement project. In addition, Respondent must provide a narrative and line item justification for each cost on cost/price schedule sheet. Cost must align with and match the scope of services.

Policy/Procedure

Respondent shall provide as part of its proposal its Policy and Procedure for staff and passenger safety plan in providing service to unsheltered individuals and families. The Policy and Procedure at a minimum must address:

1. Outreach to an unsheltered individual or family suspected of being under the influence of non-prescription substances at the time of contact or whose environment includes other individuals who are using substances.

2. Outreach to an unsheltered individual or family who is suspected of or known to be carrying a weapon at the time of contact or whose environment includes individuals suspected of or known to be carrying weapons.

3. Outreach to an unsheltered individual or family who becomes volatile or threatening during contact or in a setting in which volatile or threatening behavior is observed or anticipated.

4. Outreach to an unsheltered individual or family who has a known history of physical violence.

5. Outreach to an individual experiencing psychosis and/psychotic episodes.

6. Diversion client engagement script and process flow.

Reporting

Respondent shall provide daily reports of all activities conducted on an hourly basis, which is the basis for billing on hourly rate.

In the event of an accident, crash or incident, respondent shall notify, by phone, the Office of Homeless Services immediately after the welfare and safety of passengers and driver has been assessed. In addition, respondent is required to submit within 24 hours of accident, crash or incident, a detailed report of the accident, crash or incident, including but not limited to, date and time of incident, names and contact information of those involved, actions taken by any and all parties involved, and final resolutions and outcomes.

Respondent must submit via email daily to the Office of Homeless Services a vehicle ridership report by end of business.

Procurement Portal

Homeless Outreach and Engagement

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