Since I started this project in early February, I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent googling and surfing the Web, looking for best practices and innovative funding strategies.
I’ve found quite a few interesting ideas that have worked in other parts of the country. I’d like to share these best practices with you. But as you read them, keep in mind that ideas are nothing without a community that’s excited and animated about implementing them. Talk is cheap.
In San Francisco, an organization called DISH (Delivering Innovation in Supportive Housing) has taken over seedy hotels and turned them into well managed supportive housing communities.
I spoke with the Executive Director, Lauren Hall a couple of days ago, and asked her how they managed to fund their project. She said the city of San Francisco and its progressive mayor, Gavin Newsom, provide funding to her project and others like it. Various advocacy groups laid the groundwork for a huge policy shift years ago, and when she came on the scene, there was a political commitment to support a Housing First policy. Her buildings offer low rent, and support services like mental health and substance abuse counseling on site. I wondered what it would take to do the same at the same scale in Raleigh. Maybe there is a hotel or apartment building we can take over? But with the recent budget cuts, where will we get the money to make it happen?
Another project with a fantastic website is Housing First. Its mission is to house 1,000 chronically homeless in Cuyahoga County and they are doing it one project at a time. By documenting the reduction in ER visits, police interventions and other social service costs, Housing First proves its cheaper to house the chronically homeless in a supportive housing environment than to leave them on the streets.
I have many, many bookmarks in my browsers with case studies galore, but if you study these two websites, you’ll get a sense for where the opportunities lie.
In our community, there are two supportive housing projects, built by the Downtown Housing Improvement Corporation (DHIC): Brookridge and Lennox Chase. Mary Todd also mentioned CASA, Passage Home, and a few others that offer supportive housing. However, it’s clear that more are needed, and at a much lower price point. The new federal guidelines say agencies must try to get a homeless person/family housed within 30 days. Long-term shelter stays, the current research indicates, is counter-productive to ending homelessness, and more expensive in the long-run, than a Housing First strategy.
I wonder if anyone has tried to integrate work and job training programs with supportive housing?
The Homeless in Wake County, North Carolina: The Listening Project 