What’s New?
Effective May 2025, communities can opt to begin collecting and reporting the following new data fields.
- Captures individuals living in unsheltered settings — such as streets, encampments, vehicles, or abandoned buildings.
- This count will be disaggregated by population (e.g., Single Adults, Veterans, Youth, Families).
- It’s a subset of the active homeless number and is vital for understanding the scope of unsheltered homelessness in your community.
- Tracks unaccompanied youth living in transitional housing or temporary placements.
- These youth should be included in the active homeless count, but will not count toward Functional Zero (FZ) thresholds.
- Identifies families staying in shelters provided by domestic violence or victim service providers.
- These families should be included in your active homeless count, though they will not be counted toward FZ, recognizing the unique role of VSP housing.
Why These Changes Matter
These fields are not required at this time, but we encourage communities to begin exploring their inclusion as they:
- Align community data collection with the most current Built for Zero definitions and reporting standards.
- Ensure visibility into unsheltered and vulnerable populations, especially youth and families who are often underrepresented in traditional housing data.
- Support better resource planning, equitable service delivery, and ultimately — progress toward ending homelessness.
What’s Next?
We’ll be providing:
- Updated reporting templates and system integration guidance.
- Training resources to support local data leads.
- Reference materials in the updated 2025 BFZ Reporting Manual which includes full definitions, standards, and examples.
If you have any questions or need technical support as you begin implementing these updates, please reach out to our Data Support team at [email protected].
Thank you for your continued partnership and commitment to using data to drive change.
]]>As part of the Built for Zero movement to solve homelessness, the team in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, set a big goal: reaching functional zero for veteran homelessness.
As part of this effort, they committed to collecting better data on exactly who was experiencing homelessness. From this data, all the agencies met and came up with solutions to meet each person’s needs.
Through this approach, the community has successfully reduced veteran homelessness by 25% from 2018 to 2023. But they noticed something alarming in their data: there was a large group of veterans in their community who had a rental subsidy, but remained homeless.
“Very often, people on Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s “By-Name” list of persons experiencing homelessness are approved for rental assistance or a voucher, but can’t find a unit because of price or tenant selection criteria,” explains Karen Pelletier, Division Director of the Mecklenburg County Community Support Services.
Without an available home for these veterans, they remain unhoused.
But now the Charlotte team has a new solution.
Housing to help solve homelessness
The Charlotte homeless response team partnered with Community Solutions to purchase The Park at Ferentino, a 216-unit apartment building. Half of the homes will be dedicated to veterans exiting homelessness; the other half will be leased as affordable homes.
Crucially, this property will be linked directly to Charlotte’s homeless response system. That means as soon as a unit becomes vacant, they’ll be able to work to fill it with a veteran with a rental subsidy.
“By having a coordinated system and real-time, by-name data, they are able to know exactly what is needed to solve veteran homelessness, and this property is one piece of that journey,” said Kally Canfield, Charlotte’s Built for Zero System Improvement Advisor.
“More options in the market will help our clients that are approved for rental assistance and will improve the overall system.”
— Karen Pelletier, Division Director of the Mecklenburg County Community Support Services
Housing innovation
This isn’t just happening in Charlotte.
Community Solutions has been partnering with select large cities in the Built for Zero movement to create similar housing, designed to connect affordable apartments to people exiting homelessness.
“In the course of working toward zero, many communities — particularly large cities with tight housing markets — are also needing the means to create permanently affordable housing in a way that is faster and more adaptable than many traditional approaches allow,” said Dave Foster, Manager of the Community Solutions Large Cities Housing Fund.
Rather than building housing using low-income tax credits, which can take years to create, the nonprofit is buying existing properties using financing from social impact investors. This allows them to create housing for people experiencing homelessness much more quickly than traditional methods.
“Thanks to this social impact investment model, we will be able to help many large cities accelerate their progress, while continuing to scale a model that offers cities across the country a way to crack this critical challenge for ending homelessness,” Foster said.
Community Solutions has used this method to create housing for people exiting homelessness in other Built for Zero cities including Denver, Santa Fe, and Nashville.
This property is intended to help further Charlotte’s work toward solving veteran homelessness.
“Strategic efforts such as this will help ensure that homelessness is a brief circumstance for residents in our community,” Pelletier said. “More options in the market will help our clients that are approved for rental assistance and will improve the overall system.”
Help support Charlotte’s work
In order to solve veteran homelessness, Charlotte’s homeless response needs more homes for veterans.
Landlords interested in renting to veterans can email the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Continuum of Care at [email protected].
Cities large and small are making progress on homelessness, including:
Detroit has reduced veteran homelessness by 47% over the past three years.
Now they’re working toward functional zero for veterans, a milestone indicating that homelessness is rare and brief for that group.
“If the city can continue on its current trajectory, we believe Detroit will be among the first large cities in the country to achieve functional zero for solving veteran homelessness,” said Kally Canfield, a System Improvement Advisor for Community Solutions.
Minneapolis has reduced chronic homelessness by 30%.
Early this year, Hennepin County, Minnesota, announced they’d made dramatic reductions in chronic homelessness.
One key to this progress was a team of case managers dedicated to helping connect people experiencing homelessness to housing. They also prioritized outreach, to make sure they’re reaching all the people in the region experiencing chronic homelessness, so they can be connected to resources.
The team in Hennepin County is monitoring its entire homeless response system to remove hold-ups that stall or prevent people from getting into housing.
“When we take the time to come together and connect the dots, we’re able to call up issues, red flags, pull some levers, and keep an eye on things to make sure we’re always moving in the right direction,” said Danielle Werder, Area Manager of Hennepin County’s Office to End Homelessness.
Metro Denver region has reduced veteran homelessness by 21% this year.
In order to do this, the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative has found ways to coordinate across an area that includes seven counties and 3.2 million residents.
A big focus for the team has been to improve their data on veterans experiencing homelessness and make sure it’s accessible to providers throughout the region.
“The work we’ve done around veterans, and the reductions we’ve seen, are because we have formed these really meaningful local teams,” said Dr. Jamie Rife, the Executive Director at the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. “We’re seeing some really encouraging reductions that we hope we can replicate with other populations.”
Learn more about Metro Denver’s work on veteran homelessness.
Washington, D.C., has reduced veteran homelessness by 50% since 2015.
Leaders in Washington, D.C. created a veterans work group that brings together government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community members with lived experience. Together, this group examines the data of who is experiencing homelessness and finds permanent housing solutions for them.
“Our strategy is to have a basic understanding of every veteran, so as capacity becomes available, we can refer the veteran to services that best meet their needs and accelerate their transition to a stable, permanent housing solution,” said Jill Carmichael, Veterans Project Manager at the DC Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Read more about how D.C. is making progress on veteran homelessness.
Communities are collaborating with people with lived experience of homelessness in their efforts to end it
In Sacramento, they’re working to make their homeless response system more equitable by involving people who experienced homelessness in policy making.
“Sharing my experience with a person that never has experienced homelessness gives them a better perspective on how to create and manage those policies,” said Darrell Rogers, a member of Sacramento Steps Forward’s Partners with Lived Expertise Cohort.
Learn more about how this group is working to improve the homeless response system in Sacramento.
More communities are compiling quality data on exactly who is experiencing homelessness and what support they need to exit it.
This year, for the first time, several communities reached the milestone of creating quality by-name data for all single adults experiencing homelessness. Previously, communities had worked toward compiling this data for specific groups, like veterans or people experiencing chronic homelessness.
“Reaching quality data is a huge accomplishment,” said Tia Lurie, a Data Coaching and Performance Advisor with Built for Zero. “It’s an indicator that your community has done the work of digging deep into your local system, asking tough questions, and making significant improvements.”
Using this data, which is continuously updated, communities can track the changing size and dynamics of homelessness — and use this information to better solve it.
Washoe County, Nevada, is one of the first communities to reach quality data for all single adults. Read how this region achieved this and how they’re using this information to reduce homelessness there.
Cities are finding faster ways to create homes for people experiencing homelessness
In several tight real estate markets, Community Solutions has been working with cities to find a way to create more affordable housing, more quickly.
Using social impact investment, we’re able to buy existing property and ensure half of the units will go to veterans exiting homelessness. This process secures units for people experiencing homelessness much more quickly than typical affordable housing models, which can take years to fund and build using low-income tax credits.
This year, new properties using this model were added in Baltimore, Denver, Phoenix, and Jacksonville, Florida.
“Thanks to this social impact investment model, we will be able to help many large cities accelerate their progress, while continuing to scale a model that offers cities across the country a way to crack this critical challenge for ending homelessness,” said Dave Foster, the Manager of the Community Solutions Large Cities Housing Fund.
]]>The city is working toward the goal of functional zero veteran homelessness, a milestone indicating that homelessness is rare and brief.
“Right now we are on pace to be the first major city to hit functional zero in veteran homelessness,” said Diandra Gourlay.
Gourlay, the Vice President of Social Services at Volunteers of America Michigan, recently spoke with Veterans Radio about her community’s progress. Here are five highlights from their conversation; you can listen to the full episode here.
Many causes, many solutions
“I think it’s important to recognize that homelessness is complex, and there’s not one reason that causes homelessness. And so you do need a variety of solutions and opportunities for people to exit that and be sustained in their housing.”
Data-driven understanding of homelessness
Gourlay says there are about 100 veterans experiencing homelessness in Detroit now.
She trusts this number because “We have that live data year-round where most communities for any population that they’re working with just have that once-a-year estimate that gives them the snapshot of homelessness.
“Having that live, real-time, daily updated data is how we’ve been able to really move the mark on veteran homelessness here in Detroit.”
Coordination is key
“We all know who the veterans are in our community and the providers that they’re working with, and those providers talk to each other for each specific veteran’s case.”
Progress is possible
“The secret sauce to all this work is just that we’re all communicating and working together. … Regardless of the resources available, we can make measurable reductions to homelessness by providers coming together and working together.”
Aiming for functional zero
“It’s really ambitious. Some days it’s like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe we’re doing this. And other days … it’s really in grasp — like, we can do this.
“If a city like Detroit can do this, that is historically underfunded and [has] just really been an underdog of a city, I think it’s possible in a lot of different communities.”
Case study on Detroit
Learn more about how Detroit has reduced veteran homelessness.
Evidence demonstrates that effective solutions to homelessness can lead to significant savings across sectors such as health care, criminal justice, and emergency systems. But the moral imperative to address homelessness transcends any cost-benefit approach. That being said, understanding what is at stake can help support urgency and action.
Community Solutions has produced a comprehensive brief to offer a deeper understanding of the wide-ranging costs and consequences of homelessness. Here we have compiled some of the most important things to know from that brief.
Costs to Individuals
Homelessness can adversely affect virtually every aspect of a person’s life, from one’s sense of safety and social support to overall health and life expectancy. People experiencing homelessness experience elevated rates of dangerous health conditions and violent victimization. Daily stressors, like ensuring personal safety and finding a place to sleep, coupled with the instability and trauma of being unhoused, can also increase a person’s vulnerability to psychological conditions, distress, and substance use disorders.
People experiencing homelessness have significantly higher rates of mortality and reduced life expectancies.
Adults experiencing homelessness in the U.S. have a mortality rate 3.5 higher than the housed population, and a life expectancy that is at least 26 years shorter than the national average.
The rates of several chronic conditions and risks of infectious diseases are significantly higher among people with a history of homelessness.
For instance, tuberculosis is about 46 times more common, and hepatitis C virus infections are four times more prevalent in the population experiencing homelessness in the U.S. than the general population.
Individuals experiencing homelessness are disproportionately likely to experience a traumatic brain injury in their lifetime.
Nearly one in four people experiencing homelessness suffer from a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury in their lifetime, making them 10 times more likely to experience such an injury than the general population. Assault was the most common cause, which points to a heightened risk of experiencing physical violence.
Rates of violent victimization are alarmingly high among people experiencing homelessness.
A study conducted in 5 U.S. cities found that nearly half of those experiencing homelessness had been victims of violent attacks.
Costs to Children and Families
For children and families, homelessness can lead to devastating consequences, including developmental delays, disruptions in education, and family separation. Infants born during a period of unstable housing resulting in homelessness have higher rates of low birthweight, respiratory problems, and fever than infants born to housed, low-income families.
Repeated exposure to stressful and traumatic events at a young age causes severe emotional distress, resulting in a high incidence of mental health challenges for children experiencing homelessness.
One study found that 24% to 40% of school-age children experiencing homelessness in the U.S. have mental health issues requiring clinical evaluation, which is a rate 2 to 4 times greater than that reported for low-income children of the same age.
Homelessness also disrupts children and youth’s schooling, from elementary school to higher education, limiting opportunities to advance their education and economic standing.
Research conducted in New York City found that missing 20 days or more in a school year is twice as common among elementary school students experiencing homelessness, placing them at greater risk of being held back and dropping out of school. In turn, youth who did not complete high school were 4.5 times more likely to experience homelessness than peers who completed their high school diploma or GED.
Costs to Communities and Systems
Without the stability of secure housing needed to appropriately address the higher burden of comprehensive and complex needs outlined above, individuals experiencing homelessness use and interact with mainstream service systems — like child welfare, hospitals and emergency health care services, criminal justice, and income support — to a greater extent than stably housed community members. In addition, the federal government and nonprofit service providers make significant investments in temporary emergency housing, which serves just half of the adult population experiencing homelessness and is often a costly alternative to permanent housing.
Homeless program costs are often far greater than the cost of providing rental assistance.
A study examining the costs of homeless and other systems serving people experiencing homelessness for the first time across six communities found that longer stays in a homeless program resulted in escalating costs that were much greater than rental subsidies based on Fair Market Rents for the same time period.
People experiencing homelessness visit Emergency Departments at higher rates than the overall population and have longer average hospital stays.
Compared to stably housed individuals, people experiencing homelessness have roughly three times as many visits to Emergency Departments each year.
Laws that criminalize homelessness are highly costly.
For example, over the course of 2016 and 2017, Boulder, Colorado spent at least $1.8 million annually enforcing anti-homeless ordinances. In LA, the police department spent anywhere from $53.6 million to $87.3 million in one year on interactions with people experiencing homelessness.
Cleaning up encampments can strain city budgets.
Rising rates of unsheltered homelessness are correlated with an increase in the number of reported encampments. Unfortunately, cities often respond to encampments by clearing and closing them, which can further displace individuals and lead to harmful consequences. Responding to encampments in this way is also resource-intensive for local governments. For example, a 2019 study found that responding to homeless encampments cost Houston, Chicago and Tacoma an average of around $3.5 million in a single year.
Costs to Society
The harms of homelessness result in profound costs to society at both national and global scales. Persistent and increasing homelessness provides a stark reflection of systemic socioeconomic inequality in the United States – one of the richest countries in the world, yet where income and wealth inequality is greater than almost any other developed nation.
Local income inequality plays a critical role in producing homelessness in communities across the U.S.
An analysis of changes in income inequality, homelessness, renter cost burden, and home values over time found that an increase in income inequality within a community generates higher rates of homelessness.
Centuries of unequal access have generated conditions for racial disparities in homelessness in the U.S.
Historic and ongoing barriers to economic security and progress – including land theft, segregation, redlining, and present-day institutional practices – have led to an overrepresentation of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people among the population living in poverty and those experiencing homelessness.
Due to ableist policies and structures, individuals with disabilities face substantial barriers to employment and housing, as well as disparities in income, poverty rates, and homelessness.
In 2021, 57% of adults living in shelters reported a disability, although individuals with disabilities comprise 13% of the civilian noninstitutionalized population.
On a global scale, homelessness is a profound human rights crisis.
Every year, homelessness contributes to countless premature deaths, indicating a failure to protect the most basic right to life.
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Quality Data
“Reaching quality data is a huge accomplishment,” Data Coaching and Performance Advisor Tia Lurie explained during this plenary. “It’s an indicator that your community has done the work of digging deep into your local system, asking tough questions, and making significant improvements.”
Achieving quality by-name data shows that a community has a real-time, by-name record of all known individuals experiencing homelessness, giving them a strong baseline for reducing and driving toward functional zero.
Quality data helps communities to find gaps in their systems, identify areas for improvement, highlight what is working well, and begin to build a plan for improvement. This standard gives communities confidence in the data representing their system — they know it’s comprehensive, reliable, accurate, and up-to-date.
“The communities we’re celebrating today have displayed teamwork, persistence, and collaboration to reach this milestone,” Lurie said.
Five communities have achieved quality by-name data since May 2022:
- Veteran Population
- Chronic Homeless Population
- Single Adult Population
- Veteran Population
- Chronic Homeless Population
- Single Adult Population
- Veteran Population
- Veteran Population
- Single Adult Population
Downward Shifts
A shift constitutes a measurable, meaningful reduction in homelessness for a community. It means a community has driven the number of people experiencing homelessness below their median for six consecutive months. A shift in the median indicates when there has been a fundamental, sustained change in the level at which the system operates.
A downward shift is something to be celebrated, as it signals a change in the performance of a community’s homeless response system as they gain momentum toward reaching functional zero.
Seventeen communities have made downward shifts since May 2022:
- Burlington, Chittenden County, Vermont– chronic
- Jacksonville, Duval County, Clay County, Florida – veteran
- Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota – chronic
- Eugene, Springfield, Lane County, Oregon – veteran
- Metro Denver, Colorado – veteran
- Springfield, Massachusetts – chronic
- Lake County, Illinois – chronic
- Nevada County, California – chronic
- Saint Johns County, Florida – veteran
- Marin County, California – veteran
- Placer County, California – veteran
- Columbia-Boone County, Missouri – veteran
- Charlottesville, Virginia – veteran
- Suburban Cook County, Illinois – chronic
- Fremont County, Colorado – chronic
- Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee – veteran
- Gulf Coast Region, Mississippi – chronic
Progress on Reducing Youth and Family Homelessness
The Gulfport/Gulf Coast Region community in Mississippi was also recognized at the Learning Session for their progress in reducing youth and family homelessness.
“I’ve been working with young adults for about three years, and they’ve changed how I even do my day-to-day work. They’re able to critique the systems we have that make it work better for young adults.”
Antwon wells
Antwon Wells, MSW, Gulf Coast’s Open Doors Homeless Coalition case manager, shared more about his community’s efforts in this area. He attributed their success in part to strong community partnerships: “For any situation we have, there’s somebody you can call. If they don’t have the answer, they know they can work together to make something happen.” One critical partnership is with local landlords, who Wells said help them out by making it easier for their youth to stay safely housed. “That’s a pretty big deal,” he noted.
Through these partnerships, the community actively works to eliminate barriers youth might have to find housing. They have a drop-in center where young people can access resources or call to have someone help locate different types of support, ranging from education to transportation.
Wells encouraged other Built for Zero communities to engage more directly with people with lived experience to improve their homeless response systems. “I’ve been working with young adults for about three years, and they’ve changed how I even do my day-to-day work. They’re able to critique the systems we have that make it work better for young adults,” he said. “They have experience you’re just not going to get from reading books. They have the life trials and tribulations that they can put into practice, to make it real.”
]]>Inspired by his father who served in the military, Dr. Curley joined VA 11 years ago, starting out with the HUD-VASH permanent supportive housing program and moving up through the ranks as a housing liaison, unit supervisor, and into his current role as program director.
Dr. Curley also serves as a member of Detroit’s Built for Zero improvement team. The community recently achieved a 47% reduction in veteran homelessness on their way to reaching their goal of functional zero for veteran homelessness.
What do you do at your organization?
I work for VA Detroit Health Care System, specifically at the John D. Dingell Medical Center located in midtown Detroit. We have a five-county coverage, with Wayne being the largest where Detroit is situated, but also including Oakland, Macomb, Sanilac, and Saint Clair that surround us.
“I’m really a community organizer at my root, so to me, that’s what we should be doing — getting VA in the community activated together to solve problems.“
Dr. Gerald I.F. Curley
My particular role now is the Director of Homeless Programs here at the facility. We have vocational rehabilitation services and SUD (Substance Use Disorder) Services that are connected to the homeless program. It’s just a very robust, whole-health approach to serving veterans living with mental health illnesses and at risk of or experiencing homelessness. I have about 75 directed and indirect reports across those ten programs who are so super dedicated. I love working with this team.
I’m totally excited because now I get to be intimately involved with the Built for Zero work. I’m really a community organizer at my root, so to me, that’s what we should be doing — getting VA in the community activated together to solve problems. So locally I’m very much involved. I come to the Built for Zero Learning Sessions, I attend the improvement team meetings here locally. I’m part of the veteran leadership committee. I’m part of the GPD (Grant per Diem) Strategy Team. I’m very involved, because I very much believe that the problems are resolved from the people with lived experience and the folks on the frontline working with those folks. And so I really try to lend administrative support to that.
I find that it has really made it real for executive leadership here and throughout the City of Detroit leadership that, because I take that interest in it, it is elevated on their tables. That’s what I love about social work and just this work with homeless and at-risk folks – really getting their voices amplified and finding real, tangible solutions linking VA and community and reducing those silos.
What are you working on right now?
One of the things we’re trying to do with homeless programs is to reduce the barriers between the VA and the community, even looking within our own ten programs. There are unique characteristics to each homeless program, but they really are all one body, one living organism, so I’m really trying to drive that philosophy down through our teams locally.
We had a complete change of leadership in the mental health and homeless programs three years ago. It’s a great time to reshape thoughts, even internally, to mirror what we’ve been doing with the community and with Built for Zero. We want to help folks understand they’re a really valuable part of the equation in their program and within the larger organism that they’re part of, and we need them to show up on that level too.
One of the things I’m really working on is getting everyone to understand each other’s metrics and each other’s goals and objectives and how they all work toward restoring wholeness to the veterans that we serve. Along with that is a focus on leaning into whole health — that our veterans, our patients, are not just homeless or at risk, or have mental health issues, but that they’re complete, whole persons — mind, body and soul.
We’re really trying to right-size the level of administrative and supervisory supports within the homeless program. This work is hard. Part of my championing here at the facility for executive leadership is helping them to understand how we fit into the tapestry of the “classic” kind of medical work. I’m getting them to understand how the work that we do is different, but complementary. If you resolve these things, then you can get folks to be more conscious about their diet and hypertension and diabetes, for example.
We’re really trying to right-size the level of administrative and supervisory supports within the homeless program. This work is hard. Part of my championing here at the facility for executive leadership is helping them to understand how we fit into the tapestry of the “classic” kind of medical work. I’m getting them to understand how the work that we do is different, but complementary. If you resolve these things, then you can get folks to be more conscious about their diet and hypertension and diabetes, for example.
In terms of the community, we’re working with our community providers on identifying new niches of service as we get more efficient and effective at housing and stabilizing veterans. Some of our traditional services are becoming less relevant, and that’s a good thing — i.e. transitional housing. In 2014, we had 384 GPD (Grant per Diem) beds. Starting October 1, we will be down to 80. I’ve really been spending a lot of time mentoring, counseling, coaching, and advising our community partners, particularly the transitional housing providers, to try to find ways forward so that we can all remain relevant and support the population that we also dearly love – veterans.
The other thing that I’m very passionate about is that I will be able to continue being the Director of Mental Health Social Work Education. I love education. So we’ll have an opportunity to shape new social workers that come to VA in this area of work. A lot of folks think they’re going to hang their shingle and do traditional one-hour therapy. But this gives us an opportunity to introduce them to all the community organizing, policymaking, and social welfare administration that exists and that they can be involved in and make differences in, beyond that traditional clinical role.
How is your community working to address disparities within your homeless response system?
It’s been an ebb-and-flow approach. I know in my heart that people understand the importance of it, but it’s so easily eclipsed by things like NOFAs (Notice of Funding Availability) from HUD and then that project gets put on the back-burner. So there’s a renewed commitment now to really being intentional about keeping that forefront.
The city of Detroit actually just launched a collaborative five-year strategic plan with all of us as partners. It’s a first. They’ve invited VA as a federal partner, along with other various nonprofit entities, to sit with a third-party with the objective of ensuring that equality and equity show up in this next plan for the community. I’m glad to see the commitment to sinking consistent teeth into that topic.
In addition to that, all of the Continuums of Care have engaged an opportunity to involve persons of color and persons with lived experience in their boards, on their executive boards, and in their task forces. So there is a renewed commitment now that we’re coming on the other side of the pandemic.
We have director Shawn Liu who is amazing at leading that work for VA. They have done really intentional work nationally through the homeless programs to try to dig into how equity plays into the decisions we make with persons with lived experience, their housing outcomes, and the time they’re homeless. That team goes about it in a really intentional and quantifiable way. It’s not just loft qualitative theories. They produce tangible results as they dig into the root — the bone and marrow of the problem — and confront the systems issues dealing with equity.
Why is improving equity important in your community’s broader efforts to end homelessness?
Whether we want to admit it or not, there are a lot of things that are systemically and institutionally ingrained, and a lot of it inherently and unconsciously happens. A lot of our biases, and not just biases, are unconscious. We could even argue that they’re not intentional, but that’s not a reason to not address them.
I think that’s why it’s so important to intentionally review, at the cellular level as individuals. what our prejudices are, what our dispositions are, and what our natural tendencies and proclivities are, so we can examine how it impacts how we treat those we serve, how we treat those we serve along with.
We see it in the data, that based on those dispositions and postures, a person’s real outcomes — like how long they are in a shelter, for example — can sometimes be drawn back to how you approach that case based on sex, gender, race. That’s why it’s so important to really dig down into and see how that stuff is within us as individuals, as servants, and embedded in our systems, and try to aggressively and intentionally remove it as a barrier.
What do you think people need to understand about unequal access and homelessness?
I think the first thing that folks need to understand is we are all very individual. I often share the story, though I am visibly a Black man. I actually am multiethnic, and I’ve had a privileged background, so when someone turns to me and says, ‘Well, what would Black men who are in your age bracket think, or what do they want?’ I say, well, that’s the first misconception, because we’re not all the same. I own my privilege: a two-parent home, professional, white-collar, grew up in the suburbs, went to a very prestigious private school from kindergarten, all of that.
“We have to realize this work is uncomfortable, because it challenges how we have naturally lived our lives. “
Dr. Gerald I.F. Curley
My experience is very different. Not better than, but different. So if we’re going to really talk about equity for any of the “-isms,” we have to recognize that you can’t identify that one savior, and they’re going to be your answer. We have to get out of that mentality. So that’s the first thing — that each person really does bring their own experience and their own stuff to the picture and not to just generalize based on — well, I’ve got this one example to go from.
I think the other thing is that we have to realize this work is uncomfortable, because it challenges how we have naturally lived our lives. We are socialized the way we’re socialized. We have the experiences that we have good or bad, high or low — we are who we are. We have to be willing to enter into those painful, uncomfortable spaces, and to have those painful and uncomfortable discussions with an open mind.
We need to realize that there may be some things I need to change. or that I need to consider, or at least need to understand how it’s impacting the decisions and actions that I undertake. And so I am really glad to see that there’s intentional time being spent to allow people to just grow comfortable with doing that. It’s not an easy task to peel your own banana and expose yourself. It’s like, OK, I do have some work to do. We ask people to do it all the time as behavioral health professionals, but this is actually our work now, so that we can be more effective in our roles. That’s why it’s so important.
Why do you think homelessness is solvable?
Because we have the resources.
It requires someone to say, alright, I’m not going to allow greed and hoarding and all the other things to allow us to have resources available and not connect them to the people that need them. It’s really a policy shift. It’s a mind shift. It’s a heart shift.
We know, across the land, not just in Detroit, there are plenty of housing, buildings, apartments, that are unoccupied and unused that can be converted in some kind of way, through some kind of law, with some kind of funding, to get individuals who are homeless into them. And it’s just a matter of having the wherewithal, the innovation, and the creativity, and the stick-to-itiveness to find the connections to make that happen.
Is there anything else you’d like to share about yourself and/or your community?
We’re going through a transition, and I just want to double down on how resilient the system has been. The fact that the folks have done the work here in Detroit to examine itself and to continue to do so. That’s how we’re going to solve homelessness. That’s how we’re going to reach functional zero. That’s how we’re going to be able to move the same philosophy to tackle other problems.
Because we are learning in the midst of this how to work together, how to set aside ego and agenda, to point all the work toward where it should be, which is serving our population — veterans.
I think we will all walk away from this experience with the tools that Built for Zero has given us and the work we have done together and take that back to other parts of our lives and use it. There are ways to build fences where it seems like there’s just a cavern and no resources. We’ve done it. I’m just really encouraged by that.
We will see this kind of stuff replicated throughout our community with other populations, other systems — how you get beyond those silos, those safe comfort zones, and start to build community as service providers.
Read more Q&As with Black leaders in the Built for Zero movement.
We can create a reality where homelessness is rare overall, and brief when it occurs. Ensuring that this becomes the norm, rather than the exception, will require the United States to align policies, information systems, and human and financial resources toward measurable, population-level reductions in homelessness.
We identified four key recommendations that would scale the impact of the progress we are seeing in communities:
- Align government grants and contracts toward the goal of ending homelessness
- Ensure communities can collect and use comprehensive, high quality, person-level data
- Preserve and increase the supply of affordable housing
- Ensure equitable access to affordable housing
1. Align government grants and contracts towards the goal of ending homelessness
The first step for measurably and equitably driving homelessness toward zero is establishing a definition of success grounded in reductions, and a simple, transparent, and objective standard for measuring progress toward that aim. Ensuring that grants and contracts clearly establish accountability for, and provide funding in service of, population-level reductions in homelessness is a powerful way to support that alignment. It also ensures that we can improve the impact of existing resources and programs to achieve measurable, sustainable reductions in homelessness, even as we work to simultaneously increase federal housing supply and rental subsidy resources.
Recommendations:
- Federal grants and contracts for homelessness programs should explicitly define success as reducing the number of people experiencing homelessness.
- VA Medical Centers and Public Housing Authorities should utilize relevant waivers and program flexibility provisions, including increasing the VASH payment rate to the full allowable amount and ensuring dedicated staff time to the HUD VASH program to improve the utilization rate of these vouchers.
- Every state should adopt homelessness reduction goals and leverage existing public health, social service, and housing funding, guided by quality data.
2. Collect and use comprehensive, high quality, person-level data
You can’t solve a problem that you can’t see, and homelessness is a problem that changes night over night, from person to person. Communities in Built for Zero have demonstrated that having access to up-to-date, person-centered information is critical for making progress on reducing overall homelessness.
However, many communities struggle to access current, person-specific data on the number of people experiencing homelessness and those individuals’ barriers to housing.
Communities rely on a tool called a Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), which is mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Congress and HUD had intended to ensure that Continuums of Care can use quality data to improve system outcomes and increase accountability for results. While this tool effectively measures programmatic compliance for federally funded programs, it fails to create access to the comprehensive, updated, person-level data needed to connect individuals with housing and equitably reduce homelessness.
As a result, most Continuums of Care, localities, and states cannot currently use HMIS to answer critical management and policy questions, or understand the true dimensions and dynamics of homelessness in their communities. They often cannot understand whether the number of people experiencing homelessness is increasing or decreasing month over month, and whether there is equitable access to homeless services and housing resources. Without this information, communities struggle to understand which strategies are driving reductions in homelessness and cannot make the most high impact and evidence-based decisions on the use of federal resources.
Communities across Built for Zero have demonstrated there are proven pathways for improving access to the information they need.
Recommendations:
- VA Medical Centers should collect quality, by-name, comprehensive data on a monthly basis on every Veteran experiencing homelessness.
- Congress should require all Homelessness Management Information System (HMIS) vendors receiving federal dollars to provide Continuums of Care with the on-demand, authorized ability to retrieve, modify, copy, or move data from HMIS without incurring additional fees.
- HMIS vendors should provide Continuums of Care with the capability to generate a standard monthly report of all currently active individuals experiencing homelessness to drive interagency collaboration and population-level reductions. Currently, HMIS software vendors have created structural and financial barriers that keep Continuums of Care from being able to query their HMIS databases to obtain this information at regular intervals.
- Federal grants and contracts for homelessness programming should incentivize Continuums of Care to increase coverage of all people experiencing homelessness within HMIS through additional funding or points on application scoring criteria.
- States should establish data-sharing agreements and interoperability standards between HMIS and health information systems.
3. Preserve and increase the supply of deeply affordable housing
The United States faces a critical problem of inadequate and unaffordable housing units that disproportionately affects low-income families, people of color, and individuals experiencing homelessness. Over 8 million extremely low-income households spend more than 50% of their income on housing, putting them at a high risk of housing instability and homelessness. The country currently lacks 7.3 million available and affordable housing units.
Recommendations:
- Cities and states should remove exclusionary zoning laws and land use regulations that have played key roles in limiting the development of new housing.
- Congress should include in any tax extenders package a 50% basis boost for developments serving extremely low-income households in at least 20% of the apartments. Currently, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) often fails to serve extremely low-income households and those experiencing homelessness. By expanding the current basis boost from 30% to 50%, Congress can allow LIHTC to better target extremely low-income tenants at rents that are affordable to them.
- Congress should expand investments in Section 515 and the Multifamily Housing Preservation and Revitalization Program (MPR) and permanently authorize MPR to preserve affordable homes in rural America.
- Congress should decouple Section 521 Rural Rental Assistance from the requirement that a property must have a USDA mortgage to receive assistance, and allow low-income tenants to continue to receive rental assistance after the property’s Section 515 mortgage matures.
4. Ensure equitable access to affordable housing
Eligibility criteria and other barriers prevent people who have experienced homelessness from accessing and remaining in available housing units. The lack of access to affordable housing perpetuates inequality, hinders social and economic mobility, and increases the risk of homelessness.
Recommendations:
- Congress should expand HUD and USDA rental assistance programs to increase coverage of eligible households and reduce wait times. Despite a proven track record, federal housing programs have been chronically underfunded. Today, just one in four families eligible for federal housing assistance get the help they need, and wait times for housing average close to two and a half years (28 months) nationally.
- Congress and state legislatures should remove criminal background and credit history from tenant eligibility criteria, including voucher programs.
- HUD should amend the code of federal regulations to remove at the federal level the minimum rent requirement for voucher holders.
- Congress should pass a national source of income anti-discrimination law to expand the ability of families to use vouchers and other federal rental assistance programs by treating federal rental assistance as a lawful source of income subject to fair housing protections.
- States and localities should enact good cause eviction and right to counsel laws to prevent evictions and promote housing stability by limiting the causes for which a landlord can evict a tenant or refuse to renew a tenant’s lease when the tenant is not at fault or in violation of any law.
Sacramento, California, joined Built for Zero in March 2019. As the lead agency in the Continuum of Care, Sacramento Steps Forward is responsible for funding, training, and support for all the providers within its homeless response system.
We’re honored to have brilliant, dedicated Black leaders working to end homelessness in Built for Zero communities around the country. In this series, we’re recognizing some of the Black leaders in the movement to end homelessness.
Can you share some of what do you do at your organization?
We’ve discovered that meaningful engagement involves integrating our partners as compensated colleagues in the work — from inception to design to implementation — and sharing power in decision-making spaces.
tanesha travis
I have a significant background with health care and operations, racial equity education, and human rights advocacy, so it’s been a sweet marriage of all that experience in this job. I’m also a person with lived experience of homelessness — five consecutive years and a few subsequent bouts related to domestic violence, so in total about seven years of my life. Putting all those things together, this was a dream job for me to really take everything I’ve been through, all my experiences, and try to make this response system more equitable.
My role as Partners with Lived Expertise Coordinator involves all things that support our partners with lived expertise and liaising between them and the system. We began with a cohort of three partners and have grown to 10 over the last year. When we first started our work, we had a limited idea of what this program was going to be. We knew we needed the voices of persons with lived experience to drive this work, but we had no context or structure of how to do that.
Over the last year, we’ve really worked to define what meaningful engagement means. We’ve discovered that meaningful engagement involves integrating our partners as compensated colleagues in the work — from inception to design to implementation — and sharing power in decision-making spaces.
What are some things you are working on now?
Our Housing Problem-Solving Community Initiative has been a highlight in our community. We created a 42-hour program to train the trainer for our Partners with Lived Experience. The training focuses on technical pieces of housing problem-solving. Our partners know the human-centered, trauma-informed, and equitable approaches needed to create the foundation for Housing Problem-Solving conversations. They graciously share their experience to make these concepts very real for the providers that are taking the training. We hope to onboard six additional trainers this year as that training space lives with our partners — they are the lead trainers and facilitators on Housing Problem-Solving for our community.
We are also working on an assessment tool for our community through our Core Equity Team, which includes our partners with lived expertise, plus providers from the community, Sacramento Steps Forward staff, and Continuum of Care (CoC) members. We’ve built a prototype assessment to try to specifically address the racial disparities or racialized outcomes that the VI-SPDAT (a common triage tool called The Vulnerability Index – Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool) gives in our community.
In our community, the VI-SPDAT historically prioritizes white men, but according to our data, the most underserved are Indigenous and Black folks. Our Black community is four times more likely to experience homelessness, and our Indigenous community are seven times more likely to experience homelessness. We’re being intentional about creating this tool with the goal of implementation by the first quarter of 2024. It’s a huge lift, because it touches every part of our system — every single coordinated access point, the majority of our Homeless Management Information System data, projects, and interventions.
How is your community working to address unequal access within your homeless response system?
Sacramento Steps Forward developed a Racial Equity Action Plan in 2019 focused on internal and external equity education as well as strategies and goals for Sacramento Steps Forward, the Sacramento CoC, and the homelessness response community at large. Within this framework, we have a racial equity specialist and a racial equity committee that really is prioritizing that work. We examine progress and reevaluate this plan every year, and it will continue to be a focus of the work. To achieve this, we focus on using our data to identify disparities and inequities to see who is overrepresented in our homeless response system and who is being underserved and to work toward more equitable and balanced outcomes.
Do I ever think we will hit the entire mark on equity? I don’t know, because there are so many national systems outside of our own that press down on our homeless response system. These national systems are inequitable — they’re rooted in capitalism. So, can we ever get there? I don’t know the answer to that question, but we need to see when we reach benchmarks so we can measure our progress. We must shift our personal bias and challenge our own organizational structures, as well as our government and other inequitable structures. When I say the lift is heavy, that’s likely the biggest understatement I could possibly ever make.
Why is improving equity important in your community’s broader efforts to end homelessness?
Ultimately, racism is one of the major factors that contribute to persons experiencing homelessness. Systemic racism in this country oppresses Black, brown, Indigenous, and additional communities of color. If you ask most people to define racism, often the response is discrimination against someone for the color of their skin. There are even dictionaries that define racism in this way. However, it’s so much more than that! Racism is robbing those cultures of their resources, be it intellectual, financial, educational, spiritual, etc., and redistributing it to whomever you want to have the majority of power.
So, it’s more about resources and power than the color of skin. And because we’ve robbed these same communities of their resources for hundreds of years, it’s no wonder we have a disproportionate representation of people experiencing homelessness. Redlining is real. Predatory bank lending still happens today. Inequitable access to higher education is real. School-to-prison pipeline is real. It’s important to examine and work to address the impact of said systems.
What do you think people need to understand about disparities and homelessness?
Solving our issue with homelessness is deeply connected to solving our issue with racism. I really want us to understand that they connect.
tanesha travis
You can’t solve for one without doing the work to solve for the other. Solving our issue with homelessness is deeply connected to solving our issue with racism. I really want us to understand that they connect. Increases in rates of homelessness are directly tied to housing costs and availability, and racist policies around home ownership have been well documented. Systemic racism has created other significant disadvantages in this country for Black, Indigenous, and communities of color. Racism is one of the largest contributing factors to homelessness — they’re deeply connected. You can’t unpair them, and you can’t solve for one without solving for the other.
Why do you think it’s so important to involve people with lived expertise into this work?
We can’t build a system to service persons that are experiencing homelessness if you don’t understand how the experience is for them, where the gaps exist, and work collaboratively to create solutions that render better outcomes. It’s like major corporations working alongside their customers to find out what their experience is and being responsive to their needs.
There’s a stigma to experiencing homelessness. Even now, in various spaces, people will underestimate our partners with lived expertise of homelessness; dismissing their abilities and skills, or assuming that they need significant education or hand-holding. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Our partners have their own organizations. They educate on equity, and they are human rights advocates, cultural brokers, mediators, trauma-informed care educators, AOD (Alcohol and Other Drug) counselors, outreach workers. They have other work and life experience. Like any of our colleagues, they have significant skills and strengths that add so much and are integral to the work,
Every community is different: You can’t take the blueprint in our community for meaningful lived experience engagement necessarily and apply it to your community. While there are core values that apply to honoring and working with persons with lived experience, each community will ultimately accomplish this in different ways. This work is relational and not transactional. We move at the speed of trust and relationship. I know consultant agencies that exist where you can contract with a person with lived expertise for project feedback, specific interventions, etc. That process will give you some lived experience perspective but may not highlight and bring forward the voices and concerns of those experiencing homelessness in your community. Ultimately building relationships with and working alongside persons who have experienced homelessness within your own community helps to shift the culture within your organization, your CoC, your provider space and even local government efforts. This engagement highlights the needs of your community and the gaps in services that need to be addressed, and creates a collaborative space in which to be responsive to those elevations.
Meaningful transformation happens when we move from performative to transformative work, and centering the voices of people with lived experience is a critical part of achieving transformation within homelessness response.
Why do you think homelessness is solvable?
It has to be. I don’t think our country can keep going like this. If the majority of America realized that they may be half a paycheck away from being in that situation, they would want to solve the problem too.
I hold hope for this being solvable. It’s my hope that we continue to move towards ending homelessness by simply doing the right thing for humans. If we took every empty building in America that was just sitting there unused and got the opportunity to repurpose them for housing, we could house people. To me, it’s often the bureaucracy and capitalism that gets in the way. And that’s sad, but it’s true. We have a lot of internal work to do. We have grassroots organizing work to do. We have legislative work to do. It’s not impossible — it’s just hard. If it were easy, we would have done it by now.
Read more Q&As with Black leaders in the Built for Zero movement.
Created in partnership with Veterans Affairs (VA), this new video explains what Housing First is, what individuals being served by the system should expect, and how the community will support them on their way to being housed. The goal is that every veteran in the system — regardless of where they are in it — can interact with this accessible information.
Watch Detroit’s video:
Show your communities’ support of Housing First
We have created a version that communities can use to adapt the video to their own context, or just use the animated portion. Click here to view a version that removes references to Detroit. We hope that veteran-serving organizations and their employees will use, view, and share this valuable resource to support the buy-in and implementation of the Housing First approach across all service providers.
Download the video for use at your own veteran-serving organization
If you are having trouble accessing the video files for download, please contact at [email protected] for assistance.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
PART I: ANIMATED/generic
We can make a reality where veteran homelessness rarely occurs, and is brief when it does.
And we are continuing to make progress, guided by our shared understanding that a home ends homelessness.
Homelessness is traumatic, and the path out of it can be challenging. We want the journey home to feel as supported and direct as possible.
That’s why our entire community of providers is working together to try and make
every support we offer,
every temporary stop someone takes,
a step towards a permanent, safe, place to call home.
That’s why we are proud to be a community that embraces Housing First.
What is Housing First?
Housing First means we prioritize getting a veteran into housing, then provide them with the wraparound support they need to stay housed.
This approach allows us to support a foundation for health, recovery, and well being, while reducing the harm and trauma that accompanies being unhoused.
- Everyone is believed to be ready for housing. People aren’t screened out due to low or no income, lack of sobriety, or other issues.
- Services are offered, but voluntary. Housing first doesn’t mean housing only. We offer services to support stability and individual well-being, but they are not a condition of tenancy in housing.
- Housing First is supported by evidence. Providing housing for our unhoused neighbors is a proven approach that ensures people can rebuild their lives.
PART II: LIVE ACTION/Community-specific
Our community is committed to creating a reality where veteran homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring.
<< Film and integrate a video of each provider with their name and organization name on screen (lower third or other) >>
- [Organization Name] is proud to support Housing First.
- [Organization Name] is proud to support Housing First.
- [Organization Name] is proud to support Housing First.
- [Organization Name] is proud to support Housing First.
We’re all proud to support Housing First in Detroit.
End Card
<< List all the providers names >>
Together, we can end veteran homelessness.
For any additional questions regarding producing your own video, email [email protected]
]]>What is the Housing Stabilization Learning Cohort about?
Running over the next two years, the Housing Stabilization Learning Cohort is designed to co-create community-based approaches that coordinate and target homelessness prevention to reduce inflow into literal homelessness and advance equity.
The initial phase of this learning cohort will help communities identify priorities that build critical foundations like cross-sector accountability, staffing, and community commitment. It will also provide opportunities to engage with peer communities in collaborative learning relevant to designing, testing, and measuring progress. This work will shape the development of replicable models that have driven inflow reductions in a diverse set of at least five BFZ communities.
Coaching support for the Housing Stabilization Learning Cohort is provided by Tyler Harmon and Nadia Lugo, with Tom Albanese providing subject matter expertise.
Communities in Housing Stabilization are:
- Establishing a clear accountability structure with a Core Prevention Team, including people with lived experience of homelessness, to lead the ongoing work.
- Building a community commitment to move toward coordinated prevention. This is tied to a measurable target of reducing inflow to literal homelessness and advance equity.
- Conducting an analysis of current quantitative and qualitative data to identify demographics and neighborhoods of people who are disproportionately entering into homelessness to prioritize improvements.
- Testing and implementing a common prevention framework connected to promising and evidence-based practices.
Cohort Launch Date: November 2022
One word that best describes the Housing Stabilization Learning Cohort: Prevention
Meet the coaches for the Housing Stabilization Learning Cohort!
Tyler Harmon
Systems Improvement Advisor, Housing Stabilization Systems
Pronouns: he/him/his
Q: Can you tell us more about your position in Built for Zero?
A: In my role, I assess and design data governance and data-sharing frameworks for Built for Zero communities. I have nearly a decade of experience with collective problem-solving, community engagement, and data-based, equity-oriented systems improvement. I have led cross-sector, data-sharing projects with BFZ communities and previously supported local case managers to prevent and reduce veteran homelessness in Washington, D.C. I also have experience with building out path-clearing tools and large-scale implementation projects.
Before joining Community Solutions, I worked as a case manager and project coordinator with an SSVF provider in Washington, D.C., working to end veteran homelessness. There, I also led an LGBTQ+ Working Group working to expand services for youth who identify as LGBTQ+ and were experiencing homelessness.
I then moved to New York City and worked as an Implementation and Training Specialist, training health care providers on how to use a software suite designed to improve lives and make services more person-centered for individuals living with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
Q: What are you most excited for this cohort to do?
A: I’m most excited for the learning from this cohort. One of our goals is to break down silos and coordinate prevention efforts among providers in each community. We hope that the communities in this cohort will continue to share strategies and learn from each other — even after the cohort. Additionally, as we codesign these systems, we are gathering feedback from people with lived expertise of homelessness and advising them to be included in the strong permanent leadership structure that is designing the housing stabilization systems.
While the hard work is being done at the ground level to reach functional zero, we are striving to significantly decrease and prevent the inflow upstream. We hope to shift the responsibility of ending homelessness to be more of a community-level effort rather than relying solely on the homeless response system. This includes partnering with cross-sector partners like health care and behavioral health providers in part of a larger effort to modernize social services and encourage them to communicate and coordinate services. I’m excited to collaborate with these communities to build a coordinated system that incorporates the technology of 2023 and enables responsible data sharing for the sake of bettering lives in every community.
Nadia Lugo
Manager, Hartford Inflow
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Q: Can you tell us more about your position in Built for Zero?
A: I lead the community effort around creating a housing stabilization system through engaging upstream, cross-sector partners to work together to create a coordinated prevention system.
In my previous role within Community Solution, I provided community-based care coordination to individuals who frequently visit the local emergency rooms, boosting their health outcomes by connecting them to the care or the additional resources they need. I have developed and maintained a catalog of local resources and a Community Asset Map to identify and liaise with partner organizations.
Q: What are you most excited for this cohort to do?
A: I’m really excited about seeing the different upstream cross-sector partners working collaboratively together, especially with people with lived experience. I think that’s the key in the work. These communities are designing approaches to effectively get resources to vulnerable populations. The systems are so complex, so we are creating ways for people to more easily secure the resources they need — immediately, in real time — to be stably housed.
The fact that we’re able to conduct this work with people with lived experience guiding it, designing it, and being a part of it, is really exciting. The approaches and different interventions we are testing are really being led by people with lived experience.
My work in this cohort is focused specifically on a larger aim in a more concentrated area — ending all inflow into homelessness from two specific zip codes in Hartford, Connecticut. Within Hartford, it’s been fantastic to really see the different upstream partners come together and be excited about the work, and for other upstream partners like the Department of Public Health, come on board because they heard about our efforts and want to be a part of it.
Tom Albanese
Consulting Senior Advisor/Coordinated Prevention Specialist
Pronouns: he/him/his
Q: Can you tell us more about your position working with Built for Zero?
A: My role working with the Housing Stabilization Cohort is as a consulting senior advisor on coordinated prevention approaches and best practices. Together with Community Solutions staff and participating community partners, I helped design this cohort and have been serving as a principal advisor, leading in supporting communities to assess, develop, test, and implement community-wide coordinated prevention models to reduce literal homelessness.
I am a licensed social worker based in Ohio and have worked with communities around the U.S. over the past 30 years to prevent and end homelessness. Most recently, I served as associate director of the Community Shelter Board in Columbus, Ohio. In my past and current consulting work, I’ve contributed to the growing national body of evidence and practices supporting effective homelessness prevention and housing stabilization, including leading and co-leading national technical assistance and training initiatives for HUD and VA homeless assistance programs.
Q: What are you most excited for this cohort to do?
The cohort is giving us a real-time lab to collaborate with really thoughtful partners who are working on the ground at the community level to test how to more effectively identify people who are facing housing loss and homelessness. And they’re doing this in a way that helps providers more quickly and appropriately respond to households with the right assistance and at the right time.
We are also providing a base level of working concepts and definitions of housing security in order to develop a way of thinking about housing insecurity in different forms or degrees. This includes offering a variety of tools and approaches to organizing community-wide ways of preventing housing insecurity and literal homelessness.
The exciting thing for me is that I get to work with amazing community partners and my Community Solutions friends as we together revisit not just what we have learned and how to apply it, but to also bring out new ideas and insights around how to effectively, efficiently, and equitably prevent homelessness. I’m especially glad to be able to learn from people who have experienced housing insecurity and to hear more about what their experiences can teach us.
Do you want to learn about other Built for Zero coaches and cohorts?
What is the Large City Last Mile Cohort about?
This cohort includes several large cities working to reach functional zero for chronic or veteran homelessness. Teams in this cohort have demonstrated they have high-performing systems but must overcome structural barriers to reach and sustain functional zero. Using an “all hands on deck” problem-solving approach, the Large City Last Mile Cohort has been designed to leverage the full capacity of the Built for Zero staff, along with its partners and resources, to address structural challenges within each city.
Coaching support for the Large City Last Mile Cohort is provided by Kally Canfield, System Improvement Advisor, Large Cities.
What’s considered a large city?
We have defined large cities as:
1) communities that have been designated as a Major City Continuum of Care by HUD or
2) communities where the principal city within the Continuum of Care is designated as a “large” city according to National Center for Education Statistics AND a substantial homeless population is residing within the principal city boundaries (according to the Annual Homeless Assessment Report and by-name data, if available).
Communities in Large City Last Mile are:
- Working toward reaching functional zero for a specific subpopulation in a large city context, with the goal of reaching this milestone by July 2026
- Setting strategies to increase outflow and decrease inflow while also making other general system improvements
- Drafting a timeline for meeting their community’s functional zero threshold and six-month milestones to getting there
- Surfacing new funding and resource opportunities and/or policy changes federally or locally that can support this effort
- Leveraging resources and relationships throughout Community Solutions to help problem-solve and meet the needs and gaps identified to reaching the functional zero threshold
Cohort Launch Date: May 2022
One word that best describes the Large City Last Mile Cohort: innovation
Meet the coach for the Large City Last Mile Cohort!
Kally Canfield
System Improvement Advisor, Large Cities
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Q: Can you tell us more about your position in Built for Zero?
A: I am a System Improvement Advisor working with Large Cities that are participating in Large City Last Mile. I joined Built for Zero after spending nearly a decade working on the ground for a local nonprofit in Washington, D.C. My experience ranges from working in home health, behavioral and mental health, Permanent Supportive Housing case management, Rapid Rehousing and Prevention services, as well as effective team development and leadership.
I managed a large Supportive Services for Veteran Families program in Washington, D.C., and served as co-chair for the DC Interagency Council on Homelessness Veterans Workgroup for many years prior to joining Built for Zero. No matter the position I’ve held, client-centered practices, building partnerships, and system-level improvements have always been at the forefront of my work. I have a MBA with a concentration in nonprofit management and a B.A. in Sociology with a minor in Social Work.
Q: What are you most excited for this cohort to do?
“Each of these teams is incredibly innovative, and they are paving the way for doing something that hasn’t been done before.”
kally canfield
A: I’m most excited to see communities in this cohort reach functional zero for a subpopulation in the context of a large city. We’ve been able to show that homelessness is solvable in some communities — a lot of them being mid- or small-sized — but this hasn’t been done in a large city yet. These communities are dedicated to making homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring for everyone.
I’m most proud of the incredible work that these communities do every day, and we are continuously learning from them and from each other. They’ve really brought all key players to the table working towards the shared aim of reaching functional zero. Each of these teams is incredibly innovative, and they are paving the way for doing something that hasn’t been done before.