Throughout our RRH Works campaign, we have heard about the five key strategies for advancing the intervention discussed at the Alliance’s Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) Leadership Summit held in Sept. 2016.
Today we are making commitments to scale up RRH in our new document, Rapid Re-Housing Leadership Summit: What We Learned.
Did you miss some of the resources during our RRH Works campaign? Here is a wrap-up of the blogs and resources we released during the campaign.
1. Build the Evidence.
We need to better understand the impact of RRH.
- Check out the blog by Samantha Batko about what is we need to build and advance knowledge around RRH.
- Tess Colby of Pierce County, WA, discussed how they used data to transform their homeless system in that community.
- Chela Schuster talked in a webinar about how data was key in scaling up RRH in Phoenix, AZ.
- John Kuhn of the Department of Veterans Affairs presented how data from the Supportive Services for Veterans Families program has demonstrated the impact of RRH for veterans.
2. Adopt Standards of Excellence and Practice.
RRH programs must align with best practices, as described in the RRH Performance Benchmarks and Program Standards, and need to reflect Housing First principles.
- Cynthia Nagendra discussed the most important activities to promote the adoption of quality RRH programs, including ensuring compliance with standards of excellence, specifically the RRH Performance Benchmarks and Program Standards.
- Ben Cattell Noll of Friendship Place’s described how his program uses their data to improve practice, including through the RRH Performance Evaluation and Improvement Toolkit.
- Stay tuned for a webinar in April on the soon to be release RRH Program Toolkit.
3. Make RRH Part of a System.
RRH should be the primary intervention within the homeless service system for most people experiencing homelessness and needs to be scaled up in a strategic way to more effectively serve the most people.
- Cynthia Nagendra discussed the importance of ensuring that communities scale RRH appropriately and that all key partners support the intervention.
- Michelle Flynn described how they have used RRH in Salt Lake City as a key component of their homeless system.
- Geoffrey Ross of the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency talked about how they are using progressive engagement at the systems level.
4. Expand the Role of Local/State and Federal Partners.
To end homelessness, we need to develop strong partnerships with mainstream systems — housing, employment, education, health care, and benefits — and other nontraditional partners that can help ensure that people experiencing homelessness have the community supports they need to succeed.
- Sharon McDonald discussed the importance of developing partnerships to ensure rapidly re-housed households have the supports they require to achieve stable housing and to thrive.
- Phil Ansell of Los Angeles County talked about how they use mainstream systems to combat homelessness.
5. Acquire New Resources for RRH.
We need to advocate for more federal, state and local dollars for RRH so that communities are able to effectively serve those in need.
- Steve Berg discussed ways communities can increase new resources for RRH through harnessing mainstream systems, and ramping-up federal and state funding through advocacy.
- Jason Alexander of Capacity for Change, LLC, and I described ways to engage philanthropy in addressing homelessness. Check out our new resources on how you can increase funding for RRH, as well as how communities are using HOME and CSBG funds to support RRH.
So now that you have the information, what can you do?
- Learn and champion the RRH Performance Benchmarks and Program Standards. Use them to evaluate and improve RRH practice.
- Examine ways to use resources more strategically in your community to support RRH.
- Collect data on RRH to help us improve our understanding of the program model.
- Develop new partners at the local, state and federal level.
- Advocate for new resources for RRH.