A few years ago, the Commonwealth of Virginia decided to make a major change in the way their homelessness funding and strategies worked.
In Virginia, like many communities, state funds were invested heavily in emergency shelter operations. Based on the success with rapid re-housing Virginia experienced when implementing the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP), they decided to adopt rapid re-housing as the commonwealth's primary intervention for homeless families.
From 2010 to 2014 Virginia reduced the number of families experiencing homelessness by 25 percent. One important factor in this success was that Virginia shifted from a shelter and transitional housing-based system to one based much more on the use of a rapid re-housing approach. This paper outlines the major activities and lessons learned from this project.
This resource examines the Department of Housing and Urban Development's short-term impacts report on its Family Options Study. It looks at what the report's findings say for the effectiveness of family homelessness interventions, including long-term subsidies, rapid re-housing, and transitional housing.
For too long, the needs of most homeless youth have gone unaddressed. While communities around the country run many good programs to help them, these programs are typically filled to capacity and serve only a fraction of youth in need.
That means that tonight, many homeless youth, including youth under the age of 18, will have no safe place to stay. Instead, they will camp out in abandoned buildings, in the woods, in garages, or spend the night in homes where they are in danger of abuse or sexual exploitation. Or they may just walk the streets all night.
Originally from North Carolina, my passion for working in the nonprofit sector brought me to the D.C. Metro Area where I now live, work, and study as an M.P.A. Student at George Mason University.
Working as the Community Relations Manager of a direct-service nonprofit in North Carolina first showed me how to translate my personal commitment to serving others into a fulfilling professional career. Studying Nonprofit Management and working as the Development Assistant for George Mason’s School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs has since left no doubt in my mind that my career lies in fundraising and development.