Building Housing First into Your Community’s Homeless System
The Lancaster County Pennsylvania Experience
Kay Moshier McDivittDirector of Housing CounselingTabor Community Services, Inc.
308 East King Street, PO Box 1676Lancaster, PA [email protected], ext 120
Our Community
• County of 450,000• City of Lancaster: 60,000 person situated
in the middle of Lancaster County• Very diversified population (from very rural
Mennonite/Amish communities to a large concentration of Latino’s in the city)
• Neither the city nor county government has taken ownership of homelessness, shelters or ending homelessness
Getting Started in Lancaster County
• Lancaster Interagency Council on Homelessness: Network of Service Providers and City/County Representatives– Not formally connected to city or county government– No paid staff/funding
• United Way of Lancaster County– Affordable Housing and Homelessness were key
initiatives
• Partnership– ICH approached the UW to take leadership in the 10
year plan to end homelessness
Initial Results
• Conducted a local study on issues– Participants included representatives from the
private and public sector: engage the decision makers early on
• Issued the “Impact Report” with 5 recommendations
• United Way hired a staff person to oversee the development of the 10 year plan
5 Initial Recommendations for the 10 Year Plan
1. Develop a permanent housing strategy that would create an adequate supply of affordable rental housing
2. Develop a homeless prevention strategy that would increase the range of available homeless prevention programs.
3. Develop a housing first strategy that would work to shorten the time that people spend homeless
4. Develop a transitional and permanent supportive housing strategy that clearly defines appropriate types of housing
5. Develop a homeless employment strategy that would increase the employment potential and opportunities for homeless individuals.
Elements to be included when developing the Plan
• Expand and implement the existing Housing First programs to rapidly re-house homeless persons and to target all current shelter providers. This plan should encourage shelters to include permanent housing in every case management plan.
• Develop common key outcomes and indicators for all shelter providers to track for success measurement of rapid re-housing
Adopting a Community Wide Housing First Approach: Our
Experience
• Build a system that can support the housing first approach
• Engage the Players
• Sell it to the Community at Large
• Develop Common Outcomes and Indicators to Measure Success
Building the System
• Diversity of Affordable Housing Options– Shelter Plus Care, Supportive Permanent Housing,
Homeless Section 8 Preference– Housing units must be incorporated into the overall
housing plan for the community– Proactive/Creative housing solutions
• Faith Based Community: Homes of Hope• Transitional Units into permanent units
• Housing First Programs– Connections to Landlords– Necessary follow-up Support
Engaging the Players
• Shelter Providers and Staff
• Social Service Providers
• Policy/Decision Makers
• Funders
• Community at Large
Engaging the Players
• Engage the key decision makers in the shelter system– First Step: homeless shelter and service
providers began to meet to look at how to share resources/information
– Next Step: we utilized these providers to determine who should be in planning group
– Step Three: Buy in came when shelter providers themselves set the measurements for housing first
Sell it to the Community at Large
• Sheltering the homeless is readily accepted by the community at large (NIMBY)
• Community needs to accept the shift of housing homeless persons throughout the community
• Developing and presenting a good PR presentation– Church/Faith Based Community– Service Clubs– Real Estate/Landlord Organizations
Develop Common Outcomes
• Shelter representatives took on the task of setting common outcomes to measure success of moving to permanent housing
• Gathered baseline data from each shelter and used that as a starting point
• Presented to and approved by the ICH
• Helps funders and others measure programs on an equal playing field
Issues to consider
• Affordable housing is key: we waited for developers to come up with ideas, but that doesn’t work
• While we did a lot of work on outcomes, each shelter was measuring what they saw as important, no way to see what programs work best to end homelessness
• HMIS may work to measure success of housing first, but our system has become so cumbersome, the providers no longer support it.
• Everyone wants a “piece of the pie” so suddenly everyone is saying they are doing housing first program…be clear what you define as successful housing first
• Funding: no magic dollars out there. Housing First is cost effective compared to shelter costs, but the shift of funds may take a while
Final Thoughts
• Permanent housing must be seen as the solution to ending homelessness from day one
• Everyone deserves a home• The longer we survive in shelter
environment, the harder it is to leave the cycle of homelessness
• Each community is unique: make a program fit your community
• Use what others have done, less work and more time to deal with the real issues
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