Built for Zero is a national network of more than 170 communities across the United States working to measurably and meaningfully reduce homelessness — and proving that real, sustained progress is possible. Built for Zero communities work to make homelessness rare and brief for populations, tracking progress in real time and continuously improving their systems to keep it that way.
PROOF Communities can reduce homelessness
Communities in Built for Zero are demonstrating that homelessness can be visibly and meaningfully reduced when leaders act with speed, coordination, and accountability.
- 46 communities have achieved population-level reductions in homelessness. Communities in Built for Zero have often described the shift from responding to homelessness to ending it. This means ensuring that all their efforts to help individuals are adding up to fewer people experiencing homelessness overall, which we refer to as population-level reductions.
- 95 communities have real-time, person-specific data, also known as by-name data, which enables them to deliver more tailored solutions for each individual and understand whether the overall number is going up or down, month over month.
- 16 communities have achieved sustained reductions in homelessness, driving the number of people experiencing homelessness measurably lower over time and holding those gains.
Please refer to the dashboard at this website for the real-time numbers.
THE METHODOLOGY
- There is no single intervention that reduces homelessness across a city or county — but that does not mean progress is out of reach. Making homelessness rare and brief takes more than one program or sector. It takes the full force of a community-wide system designed to deliver results, and communities in Built for Zero are proving it.
- Many people understand that progress requires resources and access to safe, dignified, affordable housing. What has often been underappreciated is the power of reimagining how homeless response systems work: preventing homelessness before it occurs, detecting it when it does, and resolving it quickly.
- Communities that achieve lasting reductions have described a fundamental shift — from systems designed to respond to the problem, to systems designed to measurably reduce it.
- By focusing on systems change and using data as a north star, more than half of the cities and counties in Built for Zero have driven reductions in the number of people experiencing homelessness.
Creating a shared definition of success
The first step to reducing homelessness is having a shared definition of what success looks like. Communities in Built for Zero operate under a unified aim: reducing the number of people experiencing homelessness, tracked continuously over time.
Communities work toward population-level reductions for specific groups — veterans, people experiencing chronic homelessness, families, youth, all singles — as steps toward making homelessness rare and brief for everyone. Success is measured not by program outputs, but by whether the overall number is going down and staying down.
FROM
A definition of success limited to program outcomes.
Success is widely measured by the performance of individual housing programs, with no clear accountability for whether the overall number of people experiencing homelessness is going up or down.
TO
A commitment to measurable reductions.
The community operates under a unified aim — reducing the number of people experiencing homelessness as the key measure of results, tracked continuously over time.
Assembling an accountable, community-wide team and system
One of the core challenges in reducing homelessness is a fragmented system. In any community, dozens or even hundreds of organizations may serve people experiencing homelessness, each defining success by their own program measures.
Communities in Built for Zero begin by breaking down these silos to establish a unified team with shared accountability for driving reductions. In many communities, these teams meet weekly to examine how they can connect people to permanent housing, moving from a mentality of “my client” to “our clients.”
Together, they can see the system as a whole and collectively remove barriers that affect everyone experiencing homelessness in their community.
FROM
No single actor is fully accountable for results.
Each local agency holds its own piece of the solution, but no one has their eye on how the pieces fit together.
TO
An integrated, command center team.
Key agencies — including the Continuum of Care (CoC), the housing authority, local government, and VA — work together weekly toward a shared definition of progress.
Using real-time data, which accounts for everyone by name and need
Real-time, person-specific data is a necessary foundation for driving meaningful reductions. By-name data is a comprehensive source of information that accounts for every person in a community experiencing homelessness, updated in real time. Using information collected and shared with their consent, each person in the data has a file that includes their name, homeless history, health, and housing needs.
With this by-name data, updated monthly at minimum, a community is able to match housing solutions more effectively with individual needs. At the population level, this information enables communities to prioritize resources, test changes to their system, and understand whether their efforts are producing real reductions.
FROM
Annual street counts are a snapshot. Driving real reductions requires line of sight into how people move through the system over time.
TO
Built for Zero communities know everyone experiencing homelessness by name, in real time. The result is more tailored solutions for individuals and a clearer picture of the system as a whole.
Making targeted, data-driven housing investments
Built for Zero communities use real-time data to secure the housing resources they need and direct them toward the greatest possible reductions in homelessness. Often, housing investments are disconnected from the systems responsible for supporting people experiencing homelessness, or they sustain legacy approaches that do not help a community drive down overall numbers.
With a real-time understanding of how homelessness is changing within a city or county, partners can work together to make strategic investments that contribute to population-level results, including community infrastructure and affordable housing supply.
FROM
Housing supply paralysis. Many cities have significantly expanded housing resources without making a dent in homelessness. Resources alone, without a functioning system to deploy them, produce limited results.
TO
Strategic, data-driven housing investments. Built for Zero communities use real-time data to secure the housing resources they need and target them for the greatest possible reductions in homelessness.
VIDEOS
Homelessness is a solvable systems problem
Solving homelessness with Built for Zero
An animated guide to complex social challenges
Building an operating system to end homelessness
MEDIA KIT
You can access our Built for Zero media kit at this link.
BUILT FOR ZERO COMMUNITY LOGOS
You can download a logo of your community in this folder.
PRESENTATION DECK
Find a Google Slides deck with an overview of Built for Zero at this link.
Articles & Podcasts
- Malcolm Gladwell Solvable Podcast feat. Rosanne Haggerty
- NPR Planet Money: Counting the Homeless
- Fast Company: 3 cities in the U.S. have ended chronic homelessness: Here’s how they did it
- New York Times: How Many Americans Are Homeless? No One Knows
- Bloomberg: Is there a Better Way to Collect Data on Homelessness?
- How to Citizen: Homelessness Is Solvable
