Spring 2022 Learning Session Materials
May 20, 2022
Built for Zero’s Spring 2022 Learning Session took place May 11 – 12 and brought together over 80 communities working to end homelessness as part of the Built for Zero movement. This year’s convening was the first to be in-person since 2019. It started by welcoming nine new communities to the movement, bringing the total number of participating communities over 100. As communities prepared for the next cycle of work, we connected with one another, shared insights, and aligned goals around measurably reducing homelessness to functional zero.
Read seven takeaways from the Learning Session!
Click on session titles below for additional information and links to recordings, slides, and resources.
Exercise: Reflecting on Your System
Video: Reflecting on Our System Using the Four Lenses of Curiosity
Day 1 & 2 – Plenaries
Session Presenters/Facilitators:
“Being able to look down the line and see a hundred or more people from all over the country standing together and setting real, concrete aims to end homelessness is what powers this movement.”
Emma Beers, BFZ
Taj Brown, Portfolio Lead, BFZ/Community Solutions
Nate French, Portfolio Lead, BFZ/Community Solutions
K.O. Campbell, Strategy Lead, BFZ/Community Solutions
Elise Topazian, System Improvement Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
Niñon Lewis, Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Amber Chandler, Systems Transformation Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
Emma Beers, Strategy Lead, BFZ/Community Solutions
Ramina Davidson, Strategy Lead, BFZ/Community Solutions
Chela Schuster, Improvement Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
- Slides
- Reflection Exercise Facilitation Guide
- Video: Reflecting on Our System Using the Four Lenses of Curiosity
Improvement System Shaper (ISS) – Onboarding Session
Session Presenters/Facilitators:
Alyssa Keil, System Improvement Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
Jane Moy, Data Coaching and Performance Manager, BFZ/Community Solutions
Erin Healy, Strategy Lead, BFZ/Community Solutions
Tia Lurie, Data Coaching and Performance Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
Built for Zero welcomed nine new communities to the movement! In the Improvement System Shaper Cohort, new communities learn to understand the current journey that a person experiencing homelessness takes through their local systems, identify areas for improvement, and determine possible tests to improve the journey. They then familiarize themselves with the BFZ data metrics and reporting structure and establish baselines for the All Singles Scorecard, which helps communities assess their data quality.
Keynote – Racial Equity: Leading Change
Session Presenters/Facilitators:
Donald Whitehead, Executive Director, National Coalition for the Homeless
In order to solve for homelessness for all, we must understand the racial disparities occurring within the homelessness response system and take action to address them. This plenary session presented by Donald Whitehead, Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, discussed the disparate impact taking place for Black, Brown, and Indigenous populations and started communities thinking about how to make changes.
- Watch video
Please note: This video is proprietary information and is authorized for use only for Built for Zero communities. A Built for Zero Community log-in is required to view the video.
Centering Lived Experience and Elevating Decision-Making Power
Session Presenters/Facilitators:
Amber Chandler, Systems Transformation Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
Tyra Thomas, Lived Expertise Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
John Brady, Lived Expertise Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
James Lee, Lived Expertise Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
“Homelessness is a systems problem. Money is not the problem. It’s the services and care.”
Tyra Thomas, BFZ Lived Expertise advisor
Amber Chandler led a panel discussion with our advisors with lived expertise of homelessness and the homelessness response system to discuss BFZ is working toward racial indicators. This panel discussed what BFZ had to do to build an advisory panel with people with lived expertise of homelessness (PLEH) and sparked the conversation for communities to begin thinking about working toward meaningful inclusion of PLEH within their communities.
Using Disaggregated Data
Session Presenters/Facilitators:
Adam Ruege, Portfolio Lead, BFZ/Community Solutions
Aras Jizan, Portfolio Lead, BFZ/Community Solutions
Communities discussed how they can collect and disaggregate By-Name List data around race and ethnicity to analyze and learn from it to reduce disparities and increase positive outcomes for Black, Brown, and Indigenous populations.
New Functional Zero Definitions
“We couldn’t do our work without the fire department… we couldn’t do our work without the health system… we can’t do this work without system change.”
Jennifer Jager, Rockford, IL
Session Presenters/Facilitators:
Ramina Davidson, Strategy Lead, BFZ/Community Solutions
Chela Schuster, Improvement Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
This Learning Session marked the launch of a suite of new functional zero definitions intended to help communities understand what it means to end homelessness not just for veterans and people experiencing chronic homelessness, but also for all single adults, families, youth, and all homelessness. This session also highlighted two communities who committed to ending all homelessness before 2026: Rockford, Illinois, and Abilene, Texas.
Day 2 – Engaging Your Community with Data
Session Presenters/Facilitators:
Lenny Pierce, Data Training & Capacity Building Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
Tori Morris, Data Coaching & Performance Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
Every community should have a shared language of data. In this interactive session, we walked through tactics you can immediately use to engage your stakeholders with data. We covered ways to produce more effective data visualizations, how to invite your audiences into the data conversation, and BFZ interventions to take your community’s data literacy to the next level.
BFZ Data Help Desk & Quality Data Supports
Session Presenters/Facilitators:
Lauren D’Amico, Data Coaching & Capacity Building Manager, BFZ/Community Solutions
Jane Moy, Data Coaching & Performance Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
This session was designed to help communities understand their community data infrastructure and explore approaches to collecting and managing data from existing data sources in order to confidently begin building their communities’ By-Name List.
Open Space Breakout Sessions
Open Space Topics and Handouts:
Property Engagement with Kaylin Rubin, System Improvement Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
BFZ Community Investment Opportunities with Megan Klenke-Isgriggs, System Improvement Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
Data and Victims Services Providers with Alyssa Keil, System Improvement Advisor, BFZ/Community Solutions
