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

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Changing Homeless and Mainstream Service Systems
Essential Approaches to Ending Homelessness

• Martha R. Burt, Urban Institute
• COHHIO Conference, April 15, 2008

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Where Im Coming From

• Im a researcher
• All vulnerable populations, since 1975
  homelessness since 1983
• A lot is just providing ammo, for convincing the
  resistant
• Every group on which Ive done research has
  needed help from three or more public systems
• So focus on services and systems integration and
  system change came naturally

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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

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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.

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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!

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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 answerMiami/Dade
• But some things here may actually be more
  promising than in LA

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Opportunities and Issues in Miami/Dade County

• Funding streamFood and Beverage Tax
• Central authority that people trustHomeless
  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

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Opportunities and Issues in Miami/Dade County

• Took a year to come up with MOU
• After the MOUnothing happens without a
  dedicated, full-time coordinator
• Learn how other communities have done it
• Expect it to take 3 to 5 years

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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)

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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?