10:30-12:30 p.m.

Opening Plenary

Join us for the opening plenary of the Learning Session, with keynote speaker Jennifer Ho, Commissioner of Minnesota Housing!

Jennifer Leimaile Ho is the seventh Commissioner of Minnesota Housing. She has spent much of her career working to end homelessness and house those who make the least. 

Previously, Commissioner Ho led Hearth Connection, was Deputy Director at the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, and served as a Senior Advisor at HUD. She currently serves on the board of the National Council of State Housing Agencies and the Melville Charitable Trust.

12:30-1:30 p.m.

Lunch

Federal Partner Roundtable (Community Invite only)

Join us for a roundtable with federal agency representatives to explore emerging community issues and discover how federal changes can bolster your local initiatives.

1:30-2:45 p.m.

Team Planning Time

Teams will gather in their peer-learning cohorts to receive coaching from the Built for Zero team to improve community-wide system coordination; develop, revisit and revise strategic plans for ending homelessness; and review data to evaluate ongoing success toward goals.

2:45-3:00 p.m.

Break/Transition

3:00-4:00 p.m.

Breakout Sessions

NETWORKING BREAKOUTS: AFFINITY GROUPS

Networking: People with Lived Experience

Join a casual affinity space to connect with other leaders who have lived experience of homelessness for community and networking.

Networking: Senior Sponsors/Executive Leaders

Join a causal affinity space to connect with other leaders who lead their organizations or Continuums of Care.

TOPICAL BREAKOUTS:

Data and PWLEH: How to Have A Robust BNL

Participants will discuss processes and policies to ensure accurate data by including and integrating people with lived experience of homelessness. Participants will learn how to include people with lived experience in data validation and in understanding disparities in their data. Furthermore, participants will learn how to ensure that the voices of people with lived experience are included in developing data policies and how to utilize them when collecting data.

Case Conferencing Implementation

This breakout will be facilitated by our partners at Homebase. They will provide guidance on developing a coordinated entry system that uses case conferencing effectively to prioritize resources and house people more quickly, including how to implement the Built for Zero suite of Case Conferencing tools.

Effective Encampment and Unsheltered Strategies

National leaders from Clutch Consulting will support this breakout session and provide participants with practical tactics and strategies proven to meaningfully respond to encampments and unsheltered homelessness. You’ll learn approaches through real-world case studies that center permanent housing for individuals affected, while addressing public health and safety concerns. Designed for system leaders working to address these challenges, participants will leave with front-edge learning and concrete tools to apply back home.

System-Level Resourcing

Securing sustained funding to continue your community’s work is a universally experienced challenge. Join this panel discussion and breakout conversation with communities who have developed collaborative resource development structures to more efficiently and effectively secure long-term funding for their communities. Leave with some action steps your community can take, and help contribute to the network’s collective understanding of the resource ecosystems our communities operate in.

Building a Strong Backbone

Continuums of Care and homeless system leaders often face coordination across many cities, counties, regions, and sometimes states where data systems, partners, elected officials, and strategies are not aligned. Trying to wrangle all of these stakeholders and geographies can be a challenge. Learn how applying a backbone model with dedicated systems capacity is advancing success across BFZ communities and getting everyone rowing in the same direction.

Implementing the Built for Zero Report Suite Available in WellSky Community Services

Connect with fellow data staff in other communities using WellSky Community Services as we dive deeper into implementing the reporting suite locally. We will build on the available resources on the BFZ WellSky report webpage, and explore how the reports can be used to make data-driven system improvements. This session is limited to communities using WellSky Community Services HMIS platform.

4:00-5:00 p.m.

Break

5:00-5:30 p.m.

Dinner Starts

5:30-6:30 p.m.

Celebrations Plenary and Reception

Join us to celebrate the milestones and significant impacts that Built for Zero communities have reached in the past year.

8:00-9:00 a.m.

Breakfast

9:00-10:30 a.m.

Team Planning Time

Teams will gather in their peer-learning cohorts to receive coaching from the Built for Zero team to improve community-wide system coordination, develop, revisit and revise strategic plans for ending homelessness, and review data to evaluate ongoing success toward goals.

10:30-10:45 a.m.

Break/Transition

10:45-11:45 a.m.

Breakout Sessions

NETWORKING BREAKOUTS: IMPROVEMENT TEAMS

Networking: Data Leads

Join fellow HMIS leads to learn from one another about best practices in data collection, PIT count strategies, data collection for compliance, and project outcome evaluation.

Networking: Building Learning Systems in Large Cities

Niñon Lewis from HC2 Strategies will support this breakout session and provide frameworks and concrete practices to leverage ongoing learning in a large city context. You’ll learn proven methods to monitor and respond to shifting and emerging needs while continuing to drive impact over time. Designed for those working in a large city context, this session addresses the complexity and unique challenges of ending homelessness in a large city.

TOPICAL BREAKOUTS:

Kickstarting Property Engagement Initiatives

Is your community committed to launching or enhancing property engagement efforts? In this breakout session, we’ll explore a foundational step in advancing housing placement by fostering collaboration through a coordinated group, ultimately including service providers and residential owners/managers. Access resources and learn from experts who have successfully implemented similar initiatives. Seize this opportunity to drive significant change in housing accessibility.

Connecting the Dots between BFZ and Congress

The Policy and Advocacy Team invites Built for Zero communities to join us to explore our federal policy agenda and strategy, as well as the central role of local leaders and the BFZ network. This interactive discussion will focus on sharing knowledge and building our network of advocates.

Coordinated Prevention for Housing Stability

Explore innovative strategies for preventing housing instability and homelessness through coordinated efforts. This session will highlight best practices, collaboration techniques, and actionable plans to enhance housing security. It is ideal for service providers, policy makers, and advocates aiming to strengthen their community’s prevention initiatives.

From Research to Action: Strategies to Prevent and End Youth Homelessness

What is working to reduce youth homelessness? Come hear more about the latest research from ORS Impact about the practices and strategies to prevent and end youth homelessness and how communities are utilizing these interventions to make youth homelessness rare and brief. Bring your questions!

Designing and Identifying Spaces to Meaningfully Engage with PLEH

Participants will discuss and understand how to create and improve upon spaces that allow meaningful engagement with people with lived experience of homelessness (PLEH). Participants will learn how to develop a space that encourages honesty, transparency, and vulnerability. This created space will form relationships between systems, system leaders, and people with lived experience of homelessness to ensure that people with lived experience feel belonging and are able to access their power to participate in solutions to end homelessness.

System Improvement Skill-building

In the same way there are community-level methods and approaches for system improvement, there are specific individual skill sets and competencies system improvers need to drive those strategies forward. This session will provide an overview of competency lanes that support system improvement and some training resources your community can tap into to develop those skills. We’ll also use the space to surface critical competencies and perspectives that are missing from the conversation.

12:00-1:00 p.m.

Lunch

Keynote speaker: Trabian Shorters, Social Entrepreneur

Trabian Shorters is one of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs and the catalyst of a national movement to first define Black people by their aspirations and contributions, then to secure their fundamental freedoms to Live, Own, Vote, and Excel.

He is a retired tech entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, and former vice president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, where he was responsible for $300 million in active grants and endowments in 26 U.S. cities.

Shorters is the international authority on an award-winning cognitive framework called “Asset-Framing®,” which equips its practitioners to have far greater social impact, raise more money, engage broader populations, and make fundamentally stronger cases for equity and systems change.

1:00-2:00 p.m.

Plenary

We will transition from the keynote themes into an interactive workshop, offering communities actionable guidance on integrating equity and asset framing into aspects of their strategic plans, led by our keynote speaker, Trabian Shorters.

2:00-2:15 p.m.

Break

2:15-3:30 p.m.

Team Planning Time

Teams will gather in their peer-learning cohorts to receive coaching from the Built for Zero team to improve community-wide system coordination; develop, revisit, and revise strategic plans for ending homelessness; and review data to evaluate ongoing success toward goals.

3:30-3:45 p.m.

Break

3:45-5:30 p.m.

Storytelling Panel Plenary

Telling Meaningful Stories about the Work to End Homelessness

The national media landscape is fraught with misinformation and misleading stories about the root causes of homelessness. Join us to learn from communities who have been able to rewrite their local narratives and tell stories of hope rooted in the reality that communities can and must end homelessness, for all.

Data Office Hours

Data leads can join data coaches for 1-1 data coaching/deep dive support.

8:00-9:00 a.m.

Breakfast

9:00-10:00 a.m.

Opening Plenary

Join us for an opening plenary where we will be reminded that we are all a part of the movement to build a world where homelessness is rare, brief, and nonrecurring. We will be joined by federal partners to encourage and inspire us.

10:00-10:15 a.m.

Break

10:15-11:15 a.m.

Breakout Sessions

NETWORKING BREAKOUTS:

Ending All Homelessness

This invite-only breakout session will bring together communities working to end all homelessness in a shared learning space around the unique challenges of this work. We will cover topics identified by leaders working in this space, with an emphasis on youth and family homelessness and sustaining functional zero. Designed for anyone working towards these goals, we will share bright spots from the sector in a peer-to-peer learning environment.

TOPICAL BREAKOUTS:

Mapping the Housing Placement Process

Understanding the housing placement process is a crucial step to identifying and addressing roadblocks, opportunities for improvement and barriers to getting people housed. This session will provide an overview of how communities can undertake a Housing Placement Process Mapping exercise to obtain a qualitative and quantitative understanding of how the housing placement process currently operates. The mapping exercise is used as a basis to identify process improvements that can be implemented to reduce the amount of time it takes an individual from enrollment into housing.

How Funders Can Maximize Impact and System Performance

This breakout session, supported by Homebase, will present approaches around aligning funding contracts around the measures that matter to your system, as well as thoughtful monitoring and just-in-time support to improve the performance of programs and your system overall. Designed for Continuum of Care, city, and county leaders who fund homeless services, the session will share concrete practices that will elevate the performance of your systems and drive impact over time.

Health and Homelessness: Collaboration across Systems

This interactive session will take a deep dive into replicable models and frameworks from BFZ communities that built relationships and created collaborative projects across systems at the intersection of health and homelessness. It aims to provide attendees with a roadmap of how they might replicate this cross-sector collaborative work with health systems and public health agencies in their own community. We’ll cover topics including data sharing, medical respite, Medicaid waivers, and more!

Telling a New Story about Homelessness

Do you ever feel like the grim news you see about homelessness doesn’t match the progress you’re seeing in your communities? Let’s change that. Join Community Solutions’ Communications Team for a session on what you can do to prove to your audiences — including stakeholders, decision-makers, and local media — that homelessness is solvable.

Flexible Funding 101

Flex Funds can fill individual-level gaps where other resources are not available, but administrative infrastructure, data-driven strategy, and clear, flexible policies and protocols are critical to success. At this session, you’ll learn the “how-tos” of Flex Funding from communities that have successfully leveraged them to drive community-level outcomes. We’ll preview the BFZ Flex Fund Guide intended for communities that have received, are applying for, or are trying to strategically spend Flex Funds.

Ending Veteran Homelessness

This breakout will allow communities to hear from the VA National Homeless Programs Office about bright spots, promising programmatic practices, and the federal One Team strategy to end veteran homelessness.

PWLEH Learning Lab: Funding for PWLEH Work

This is an invite-only breakout session for communities participating in the Learning Lab to discuss different ways to fund, develop, and implement PWLEH work.

11:15-12:15 p.m.

Lunch

12:15-2:00 p.m.

Team Planning Time

Teams will gather in their peer-learning cohorts to receive coaching from the Built for Zero team to improve community-wide system coordination; develop, revisit and revise strategic plans for ending homelessness; and review data to evaluate ongoing success toward goals.

2:00-2:15 p.m.

Break

2:15-3:00 p.m.

Closing Plenary

Join us to say farewell to new and old friends, and to hear from VA National Leadership and one of our Housing Equity Strategists on how to maintain the energy needed to continue the movement to end homelessness.