1 / 12

Changing Homeless and Mainstream Service Systems: Essential Approaches to Ending Homelessness

Changing Homeless and Mainstream Service Systems: Essential Approaches to Ending Homelessness. Martha R. Burt, Urban Institute COHHIO Conference, April 15, 2008. Where I’m Coming From. I’m a researcher All vulnerable populations, since 1975; homelessness since 1983

xiu
Download Presentation

Changing Homeless and Mainstream Service Systems: Essential Approaches to Ending Homelessness

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Changing Homeless and Mainstream Service Systems: Essential Approaches to Ending Homelessness Martha R. Burt, Urban Institute COHHIO Conference, April 15, 2008

  2. Where I’m Coming From • I’m a researcher • All vulnerable populations, since 1975; homelessness since 1983 • A lot is just providing ammo, for convincing the resistant • Every group on which I’ve done research has needed help from three or more public systems • So focus on services and systems integration and system change came naturally

  3. Stages of Systems Integration Systems change typically means one is trying to integrate one or more systems Stages of services or systems integration are: • Isolation • Communication • Coordination • Collaboration • Coordinated Community Response

  4. Mechanisms that Facilitate Change • Coordinator to make change happen; personality important • Streamlined funding processes • Program-level technical assistance • Intentional client-program matching • Data to galvanize and measure change

  5. Systems Change in Portland, Oregon • Full-time coordinator, located in BHCD • Resources to convene, staff committees, work with public agency and provider staff • Pre-development money • Ablity to partially fund new positions in newly-involved agencies • Etc.

  6. Systems Change in Portland, Oregon • Merged CoC and TYP processes • Incorporated every committee and task force • Got the agencies with capital, operating, and services $ together • Expanding to families, respite care, jail and detox exiters, and more • Testimony: without the coordinator, it would never have happened!

  7. Systems Integration In Seattle/King County • Full-time coordinator, located in city Office of Housing • Same resources as for Portland • Results so far: • City and county started talking • Funders Group • New state and local funding streams • Veterans • Employment • Office of Housing taking over funding for coordinator

  8. Turning the Ocean Liner in Los Angeles • The situation in LA in 2003 • Sound familiar? At a bar one evening, we were trying to figure out whether any place would be harder • The answer—Miami/Dade • But some things here may actually be more promising than in LA

  9. Opportunities and Issues in Miami/Dade County • Funding stream—Food and Beverage Tax • Central authority that people trust—Homeless Trust • Simplified reporting/control process keeps out of (most) politics • All public money for homelessness flows through • Problems with housing agencies, but incipient MOU is a start

  10. Opportunities and Issues in Miami/Dade County • Took a year to come up with MOU • After the MOU—nothing happens without a dedicated, full-time coordinator • Learn how other communities have done it • Expect it to take 3 to 5 years

  11. Framework for Describing System Change Progress can be measured by changes in: • Power • Money • Habits • Technology or Skills • Ideas or Values Laying a New Foundation (Greiff, Proscio & Wilkins, 2003)

  12. Questions About the Impact of System Change • How will we know that systems have changed? • Which programmatic and system-wide efforts are most important to achieve change? • Are we making progress toward ending homelessness? • Can we verify that systems change contributed to progress?

More Related