COA - Council On Accreditation

Note: COA's Shelter Services standards accommodate a range of shelters providing different levels of service intensity. Low demand shelters offer basic shelter services that include a roof, a place to sleep, and a meal; additional services may be offered, but use of services is not required. Enhanced shelters provide or make available a wide range of services and can require that residents use those services as a condition of stay.

Low Demand Shelters, Emergency Shelters, and Short-Term Shelters will complete: All applicable standards except SH 9, SH 10, and SH 11.

Enhanced Emergency Shelters, Enhanced Short-term Shelters, and Transitional Shelters will complete: All applicable standards except SH 10, and SH 11.

Shelters for Homeless and Runaway Children and Youth will complete:All applicable standards.

Note: Please see Self-Paced_Training: Shelter Services (SH) in the Tools Index for additional assistance with this standard.


	PURPOSE: Shelter services meet the basic needs of individuals and families who are homeless or in transition, set them on the path toward stable family or independent living, and provide a point-of-entry to the continuum of community care.

RELATED FILES

NA Request.doc
PA-SH Reference List.pdf
PA-SH Template.doc


	SERVICE One or more organization-operated programs or activities that have a common general objective and deploy the organization's material and human resources in a planned and systematic manner. An organization that publicly promotes or identifies itself in writing as offering a service, is licensed to deliver a service, assigns personnel and/or space to a service, or allocates financial resources to a service is considered to offer that service.


	FAMILY Two or more people who consider themselves family and who assume obligations, functions, and responsibilities generally essential to healthy family life. Child care and child socialization, income support, long-term care, and other caregiving are among the functions of family life. The definition of "family" will rest with an individual's indication of who plays a family member role, including current or former foster family, adoptive family, extended family members, fictive kin, or significant others. Organizations that believe family is the central constellation in a child's life, and that family attachments are of primary importance for human development, will strive to work with professional staff to develop a common understanding of "family."


	COMMUNITY A specific group of people living in the same locality and who may share a common culture, values, and norms. Communities can also be defined by race, religion, ethnicity, age, occupation, political status, tribal affiliation, interest in particular problems or outcomes, or other common bonds. The term "community" encompasses worksites, schools, tribes, residential neighborhoods, business districts, recreational areas, and health and human service sites.