Today when a family facing a housing crisis seeks shelter in Los Angeles or Mercer County, NJ, they will encounter a very different homeless service system than they would have just a few short years ago. That’s because both communities have radically transformed their homeless service systems to increase their capacity to help families.
In the past, families in L.A. would call programs all over the county to find a vacancy. Due to the county’s size, they might find a program 25 or even 50 miles from their previous residence. Too often, they would be forced to turn to an adult shelter program or a facility in Skid Row that was poorly equipped to support families with children. Today, the city has Family Solutions Centers strategically located through the county to assesses families’ housing needs and refer them to the most appropriate shelter or housing intervention in their own community.
This video is a recording of a webinar that originally streamed on Tuesday, March 10, 2015, that highlighted the rapid re-housing strategies of Mercer County (Trenton), NJ and Los Angeles. During the webinar leaders from these communities discussed how they have significantly expanded their capacity to rapidly re-house families. The speakers also highlighted the strategies they used to develop a coordinated entry system, expand rapid re-housing, lessons learned along the way, and the impact the shift has made in their larger homeless service system.
This resource examines the role of long-term, congregate transitional housing in ending homelessness. It was developed in collaboration with the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, the departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, and the Office of Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice.
This one-page document outlines the five major steps that communities must take to end veteran homelessness.
With this speech, Nan Roman, Alliance President and CEO, addressed Supportive Service for Veterans Families (SSVF) “surge” grantees from across the country in December 2014. The SSVF “surge” grantees received approximately $200 million in one-time funding to provide rapid re-housing and prevention assistance to veteran households.
