USICH Blog
May 2012 Archive
30/05/2012 - Checklist: Ten Principles of Care for Families and Children Experiencing Homelessness
According to America’s Youngest Outcasts 2010, a report by The National Center on Family Homelessness, more than 1.6 million, or one in 45 children in America, experience homelessness each year. Family homelessness is increasing in all parts of the country and families represent an ever growing sub-set of the overall homeless population. 
Most homeless families have experienced extreme poverty and violence, have been unstably housed, and have limited education and work histories. Service providers can better serve homeless families and help mitigate the devastating impact of homelessness by implementing ten basic principles of care. Does your organization implement these principles when serving homeless children and families?
24/05/2012 - Home For Good: Creating a New Los Angeles
For as long as we’ve been counting, Los Angeles County has been the homeless capital of the nation, with more people living on our streets than any other region of the country. It’s also home to 10 million people who believe we can do better – that we can create a Los Angeles community that is stronger and more vibrant than it is today.
In December 2010, we celebrated the beginning of this new Los Angeles. We launched Home For Good, a five-year plan to end chronic and Veteran homelessness, inspired by the leadership of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and informed by Opening Doors. The action plan is led by the Business Leaders Task Force, a joint initiative of United Way of Greater Los Angeles and the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce. Most importantly, the plan belongs to all of us.
A year and a half into the plan, we’re on track to reach our goals, with over 3,000 chronically homeless individuals and over 1,200 veterans in permanent housing to date. Five strategies have been central to our success and learning thus far.
21/05/2012 - Veterans in Focus: Beyond VASH
It has been nearly two years since Opening Doors was launched with the goal to prevent and end Veteran homelessness by 2015. Together, we have made great strides. From 2010 to 2011, there was a 12 
percent decrease in homelessness nationally among Veterans, and in some places, that reduction was as high as 20 percent. Now more than ever, we need a stronger sense of urgency with over 67,000 of the nation’s men and women who served in our armed forces experiencing homelessness in addition to our Veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to continue to break down silos not just in the federal government but in state and local governments as well. The most recent USICH newsletter is focused on providing communities the knowledge of how to unlock available resources in their communities beyond the HUD-VASH program. For this issue, we spoke with the Department of Veterans Affairs about their portfolio of programs to serve Veterans at-risk of or experiencing homelessness, we profiled three Veterans explaining how resources can be coordinated to meet needs in a Veteran-centric way, and we interviewed two leaders in Massachusetts about successful local programs.
18/05/2012 - Hollywood Joins the Fight against Veteran Homelessness
As coordinator of the 100,000 Homes Campaign, Community Solutions is proud to be partnering with USICH, VA and HUD to lead the national housing pillar of the ambitious new Got Your 6 Campaign. Last week, in a show of support for veterans and military families, representatives from nearly every major Hollywood production studio, broadcast and cable network, talent agency, and guild in the entertainment 
industry announced the launch of the Got Your 6™, a new effort to support veterans and foster opportunities for them to contribute their unique skills and abilities in communities across the country. Got Your Six aims to support and empower veterans around six pillars of reintegration, each led by a different group of top-tier non-profits and government agencies.
17/05/2012 - New Veterans Resource and Referral Center in DC: Greater than the Sum of its Parts
On May 9th, I had the pleasure of attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new Washington, DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s new Community Resource and Referral Center (CRRC) in Northeast DC. The CRRC offers a wide range of health care and social services to Veterans experiencing homelessness and those at-risk of homelessness. Services include a Primary Care Clinic, a complete kitchen, laundry and shower facilities, food pantry, a play room for children, and education and employment resources. The CRRC will be open 24/7 providing resources to Veterans from the District of Columbia, Southern 
Maryland, and Northern Virginia, though not all services will be available 24/7.
Dr. Clarence Cross, a chaplain at DC’s VAMC, captured the hope and intent for the CRRC best in the invocation when he said that it “will be greater than the sum of all its’ parts:” it is a place where Veterans and their families can access services whether they are in need of one service or many, and help them find or maintain safe and stable housing.
15/05/2012 - New Mexico: Steps to Make a Plan Come to Life
The New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness recently held its first statewide conference in Albuquerque on ending homelessness in their state. I had the honor of delivering a keynote to stakeholders from across the state at the conference and was joined by leaders such as Linda Couch from the National Low Income Housing Coalition (on the right in this photo). The energy, enthusiasm, and true passion for the cause of ending homelessness among service providers, advocates, and government officials was inspirational. 
The challenge for this group now is figuring out how to harness that energy and deploy it in a careful and coordinated way to move from planning to action. This challenge is not unique to New Mexico nor is the major elements of their strategy to end homelessness very different from other states. However, the specific activities to support the strategy will need to be tailored to the population of individuals and families experiencing homelessness specifically in New Mexico. Using Opening Doors as a guide, New Mexico can create a framework for state- level efforts that can be replicated and adapted by the diverse communities throughout the state.
10/05/2012 - Transitioning to stability: VA provides incentive for Transition in Place model
Transitional housing for people who are experiencing a housing crisis has taken many shapes in communities over the last 20+ years. In its traditional form, transitional housing is time limited housing (from
two weeks to two years) that includes various levels of assistance to help the individual or family transition into permanent housing. It is often delivered in single household units or in smaller congregate settings with intensive services that are generally mandatory for the tenant/client to stay in the housing. It is an expensive intervention but can represent a significant part of the crisis response portfolio, including those units targeted at Veterans, victims of domestic violence, and youth.
However, as communities look to resolve rather than manage homelessness, they are retooling their resources to include models that have housing stability as its focus. A model the VA and USICH are encouraging is a Transition in Place Model.
09/05/2012 - Local United Ways Playing a Leading Role
Imagine the possibilities if every local United Way across the country was engaged in solutions to end homelessness. What would progress look like if the business leaders and volunteers that support United Ways were pushing for real systems change and investing to create community impact to prevent homelessness?
I imagine there would be more high profile champions working with elected officials, providers and advocates to develop and implement local strategic plans to end homelessness that are aligned with Opening Doors. These champions would elevate the community engagement to increase resources directed toward solving homelessness.
I imagine that there'd be fewer projects stopped by NIMBY as business leaders would be joining forces with permanent supportive housing developers. They would help make the case to elected officials that supportive housing is a cost-effective solution to street homelessness and encourage land use approvals despite neighborhood objections.
I imagine that shelters would be better coordinated and able to be organized around a central access point: a result of United Way investment and volunteer support to create the most efficient approach by applying business technology and practices. The result would be shorter lengths of stay and more exits to housing.
08/05/2012 - Ending Veteran Homelessness in Ohio: VISN 10 Summit on Homelessness and Employment Opportunities for Veterans
We’ve made notable progress towards the goal of ending Veteran homelessness by 2015. Last year, we saw a 12 percent decrease nationally in homelessness among Veterans. This progress has helped put us on the path toward ending homelessness among Veterans by 2015. Despite this progress, over 67,000 Veterans experienced homelessness on a single night in January 2011.
Now more than ever, we need a greater sense of urgency. However, communities are increasingly being asked to do more with less. To meet this challenge we must coordinate our efforts and act strategically in order to accelerate our progress and make our limited resources go farther.
Reviewing progress and maximizing efforts to end Veteran homelessness was the purpose of VA’s VISN 10 Veterans Homeless Summit that I participated in on May 1 in Columbus, Ohio. The Veterans Integrated Service Network 10 serves veterans in Ohio, Northern Kentucky, and Southeastern Indiana. I presented at the Summit on Opening Doors and specific strategies for increasing economic security for Veterans.
02/05/2012 - Trauma-Informed Care for Women Experiencing Homelessness and their Children
Today, USICH highlights the issue of trauma-informed care, particularly from the angle of trauma-sensitive programming. While it is absolutely critical to understand the impact of traumatic events
past and present on an individual's ability to rebuild, it is equally important to think about how an organization structures and operates its programs to take trauma sensitivity into consideration. How are staff expectations set and how does professional development occur? What are the program rules, why do they exist, and how are they enforced? How do programs build trust with families when it might be perfectly natural for a family not to trust the program right away?
