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Reduce to Functional Zero
This section of the change package is most appropriate for communities focused on reducing to functional zero for specific subpopulations (e.g. veteran and chronic) or for all single adults.
You’ll learn the science of testing improvement ideas in rapid cycles to drive monthly reductions in homelessness.
Build the Will to Drive Reductions
Establish an accountable, multi-agency, multicultural/interracial improvement team
- No matter if your improvement work is focused on youth, veterans, families, or people experiencing chronic homelessness, the work of ending homelessness is ultimately tied to responding to a legacy of racism. Plan with, not for, the communities homelessness most affects.
- 15 Tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/Multicultural Communities: A Community Builder’s Toolkit by the Institute for Democratic Renewal.
- 15 Tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/Multicultural Communities: A Community Builder’s Toolkit by the Institute for Democratic Renewal.
- Use a technology platform like Slack to facilitate communication and coordination between outreach staff and service providers.
- Identify key partners, through existing or new relationships, to bring to the table for regular input during planning. Include mainstream or non-traditional partners.
- Perform a stakeholder analysis to determine who needs to be at the table, and how you will get them there.
Engage stakeholders in a shared aim and target date for functional zero
- Communicate a path toward the goal of ending veteran and chronic homelessness using a conceptual framework to simplify communication of the strategy and progress towards the goal.
- Community Sample: Multnomah County CoC
- Community Sample: Multnomah County CoC
- Publicly recognize, through media or events, public officials who support your effort or commit resources
Create accountability mechanisms for improvement work
- Bring homeless service organizations together regularly to review shared data to inform an ongoing discussion of strategies for improvement towards collective goals
Run a Coordinated Entry System
Close the Side Doors
- Convene directors of VA-funded programs to evaluate decision making process for referrals into VA-funded resources and identify opportunities to better target housing and services based on by-name list data; facilitate conversation with a process mapping exercise or a Built for Zero coach! [Veteran]
- Require that all housing subsidies and units are subject to prioritization policies, thereby closing “side doors” for referrals to permanent supportive housing providers
Implement Coordinated Entry Policies and Procedures
- Determine which entity within the CoC structure is responsible for the design, implementation and oversight of coordinated entry. Establish roles and responsibilities early in the planning process and write them into the Coordinated Entry System’s Policies and Procedures.
- Community Samples: Coordinated Entry System Policies and Procedures
- Community Samples: Coordinated Entry System Policies and Procedures
- Prioritize housing placements to align with community goals.
- Community Sample: Housing, Matching, and Referral and Prioritization Policy Examples
- Community Sample: Housing, Matching, and Referral and Prioritization Policy Examples
- Appoint a planning committee (for CE system design and implementation) that includes CoC lead agency staff, funders, a diverse representation of providers, and community stakeholders, including consumers.
- As part of your CoC/CE governance structure, identify who is responsible for ensuring all assessment sites/staff are trained.
HMIS/Data Management
- Work with the VA to share homeless veteran data between HMIS and HOMES, the VA’s database.
- Develop necessary release of information (ROI) documents and data-sharing agreements to share participants’ identifying information; include all participating agencies and eliminate the need for participants to sign multiple releases.
- Bright Spot: Fresno/Madera County CoC
Educate providers and community members
- Use short videos and one-pagers to communicate to providers and community members about what CES is and why it helps reach the goal of functional zero.
Increase Outflow
Run High Quality Case Conferencing Meetings
- Employ the strategies from the Built for Zero Case Conferencing Action Pack!
- Understand and envision the goal of case conferencing meetings.
- SSVF’s Case Conferencing Overview
- SSVF’s Case Conferencing Overview
- Consider providing an explicit format or script for case managers responsible for presenting their client’s case during the meeting.
- Community Sample: Consultation and Coordination Form, Cook County, IL
Decrease length of time from identification to assessment/case management
- Create low- or no-barrier shelters that offer 24-hour access, with a focus on individuals who are highest priority for permanent supportive housing.
- Community Sample: San Francisco Navigation Center Overview
- Community Sample: San Francisco Navigation Center Overview
- Adopt Progressive Engagement principles to ensure that assistance is “right-sized” for the client’s needs.
Decrease length of time from assessment to program enrollment
- Prioritize veterans who are experiencing homelessness but ineligible for VA healthcare service in homelessness preferences implemented by PHAs, multi-family property owners, CoC programs and ESG Program-funded projects.
- HUD Notice CPD-16-11: Prioritizing Persons Experiencing Chronic Homelessness and Other Vulnerable Homeless Persons in Permanent Supportive Housing
- HUD Notice CPD-16-11: Prioritizing Persons Experiencing Chronic Homelessness and Other Vulnerable Homeless Persons in Permanent Supportive Housing
- Develop housing navigation staff to provide engagement and navigation support.
- Community Sample: Housing Navigator Role Description, Phoenix/Maricopa County CoC
- VA Housing Navigator Toolkit
- Bright Spot: Maricopa County, AZ
- Start enrollment and participation in housing programs while documentation is being secured, for individuals presenting with a disability who do not yet have documentation. [Note that for HUD-funded projects, one must submit disability paperwork within 45 days of enrollment]
- Bright Spot: Riverside, CA
- Bright Spot: Riverside, CA
- Establish a permanent housing plan with timeline for each veteran immediately after intake; revisit housing plan throughout their stay and at each time clinical or other services are received.
- Hire housing locators with experience in real estate to leverage their knowledge of the housing market and understanding of the landlord perspective.
- Explore collaboration with SSVF staff to provide navigation and housing location services for VASH clients. [Veteran]
- Create streamlined process with local Social Security office or comparable entity to obtain income verification or other necessary documents.
- Community Sample: Honolulu, HI
Decrease length of time from enrollment to permanent unit identification
- Ensure that veterans are offered permanent housing prior to entering GPD; if they choose permanent housing, GPD may be used as bridge housing to support the housing process.
- Identify recovery housing as an option for people living with addiction to help provide support.
- Increase access to PSH by helping households ready for more independence to transition from PSH to mainstream rental subsidies. Partner with the Public Housing Authority (PHA) to dedicate Section 8 housing to move-on strategies and free up PSH resources.
- PHA Toolkit from our friends at CSH
- Public Housing Agency (PHA) Moving On: How-To Guide from HUD
- HUD Notice PIH 2015-15 (HA): Guidance on Housing Individuals and Families Experiencing Homelessness Through the Public Housing and Housing Choice Voucher Programs
- The Business Case for Partnering with Public Housing Agencies to Serve People Experiencing Homelessness from HUD
- Lead service agencies to create shared housing opportunities; use by-name list data to identify the profile of an individual who would be successful and interested in shared housing.
- Maintain a list of units in your “inventory” through landlord partnerships so when clients are ready to be housed, less time spent is spent looking for available units.
- Community Sample: Palm Beach County, FL
Increase the number of engaged landlords with available units
- Build relationships and trust with potential landlords by attending apartment association meetings or other events where landlords are meeting.
- Use strategies unique to local context to ongoingly engage private market landlords.
- Incentivize landlords to rent to people with Housing Choice Vouchers or other rental subsidies.
- Create a “landlord mitigation fund” to give landlords confidence that they will not have to cover excessive damages to the rental unit, lost rent, or legal fees beyond the security deposit.
- Allay landlords’ legal concerns about setting aside units for people experiencing homelessness by coaching them to add legal language to their standard leases to protect them.
- Community Sample: Lease Language Campaign Flyer from Bakersfield, CA
- Community Sample: Lease Language Campaign Flyer from Bakersfield, CA
- Establish a clear central point of contact for intake of available units and interested landlords.
- Bright Spot: San Diego, CA
- Bright Spot: San Diego, CA
Decrease the Length of Time from permanent unit identified to move-in
- Work with Public Housing Authority to pre-inspect units, or train housing agency staff to conduct inspections, to shorten the length of time in this part of the housing process.
Decrease Inflow
Analyze individuals entering homeless system to identify focus areas
- Conduct focus groups or client interviews to identify problems in the existing referral process and inform development of a uniform and coordinated referral process.
- Develop an “at-risk policy” to identify those most at risk of becoming chronically homeless.
- Community Sample: At-Risk Policy, Montgomery County, MD and Lancaster, PA
- Community Sample: At-Risk Policy, Montgomery County, MD and Lancaster, PA
- To identify individuals at risk of becoming chronically homeless, sort list by those who meet disability criteria but are short of the requirement for length of time; monitor this data to target early interventions and reduce chronic homelessness
- Bright Spot: Waukegan/Lake County/North Chicago
- Bright Spot: Waukegan/Lake County/North Chicago
- Work with HMIS vendor to create reports that further automate tracking Chronic Homeless status
- Slide Deck: Tracking Chronic Data Over Time
- Slide Deck: Tracking Chronic Data Over Time
- Implement a FUSE initiative to target the highest utilizers of jails, hospitals, healthcare, emergency shelters, and other systems.
Prevent newly identified individuals from entering homeless services
- Implement a standardized screening tool for homelessness prevention/rapid resolution across all agencies that serve as access points.
Integrate System-Wide Diversion
- Coordinate the shared use of a diversion screening tool to implement standard protocols across all agencies serving as system access points
- Community Sample: Diversion “How To,” Cook County
- Bright Spot: Arlington, VA
- Assist individuals and families with identifying alternate housing arrangements and connecting them with support by diverting them from entering your community’s homeless assistance system.
Evaluate and Address Resource Gaps and Systemic Barriers
Inventory housing assets
- Map housing process with the Public Housing Authority and local housing providers to determine where bottlenecks occur and improvements can be made
Identify Scope of System and Housing Needs
- Ensure that all beds dedicated for chronically homeless are currently filled by individuals experiencing chronic homelessness and that all referrals to these beds exclusively come through the CES.
- Create process map of coordinated entry system.
- Select, collect, and analyze key metrics for each step of system (measurement tree)
Perform a Client-Level Needs Analysis
- Identify common attributes of clients not quickly exiting to permanent housing; tailor strategies to households who share these attributes.
- Tool: Housing Barriers Assessment, New Hampshire
Perform gap analysis to compare the assets to need
- Use a gap analysis tool to understand the gaps in housing resources against the projected need; use this data to optimize resources and quantify and advocate for needed resources
- SSVF Gaps Analysis Tool [Veteran-Specific Resource]
Advocate for resources needed to address the gap
- Use cost study data showing cost savings of permanent housing per person and on an aggregate as a community makes progress towards functional zero
Increase flexibility of program rules
- Work creatively within the rules and regulations related to housing resources in support of securing permanent housing for those experiencing severe mental illness
- Bright Spot: Riverside, CA
- Bright Spot: Bergen County, NJ
- Infuse pet-friendly practices throughout the homeless services system so pet ownership is one less barrier a household faces in getting back into housing.
- Resources to Shelter and House People and Pets Together
Optimize VA Transitional Housing
- Meet with GPD agency-level leadership to hear their concerns about changing program models or re-purposing VA Transitional Housing funding
- VA Notification: GPD Model Transformation Summary
- Bright Spot: Honolulu, HI
- Bright Spot: Washington D.C.
- Project long-term number of GPD beds and service models needed using by-name list data; then review portfolio of GPD beds currently in the community and create plan to convert beds to other models.
- Community Sample: Chicago’s GPD Projection Tool
Develop more housing opportunities
- Create and/or maintain quality supportive housing for the community’s most vulnerable residents.
- Shared housing increases the number of housing opportunities per single unit, and can help some households with housing affordability and companionship. If a person is willing to have a roommate, this option is worth exploring.
Implement A Housing First Approach System-Wide
- Adopt Housing First principles system-wide.
- Provide regular, shared trainings on the Housing First approach for providers and community alike; put forward strategies that inform the development of system-wide screening criteria that are capable of serving all clients, regardless of barriers.
- Bring providers together to complete a Housing First self-assessment; the assessment identifies areas for improvement and creates an opportunity for providers to redesign their existing programs or reallocate resources into a new program built on the Housing First model.