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Some Thoughts on the 2015 National Family and Youth Conference

February 27, 2015

Alliance staff people are back in the cold weather in Washington, DC, after an enlighteing experience at the 2015 National Conference on Ending Family and Youth Homelessnessin San Diego last week. The final count was 950 people attending, an all-time high for our family and youth conference. Traffic on Twitter was robust, giving people all over the country who couldn’t attend a taste of what was going on.

And once again, the impression we were left with was the overwhelming enthusiasm and determination that people in this field have, despite obstacles and challenges, to celebrate successes, to push themselves to do better, and never give up on the youth and families who are homeless. In the closing plenary Friday afternoon, Alliance President and CEO Nan Roman shared her thoughts on some things that had impressed her over the course of the conference. Here is a look at some of the highlights.

Here are 5 Steps Communities Must Take to End Veteran Homelessness

February 25, 2015

At the Alliance, we’ve been talking a lot about the push to end veteran homelessness by the end of 2015. And we’re not the only ones (see: the departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, the President and First Lady, and the list goes on…). Of course, telling you, “you need to end veteran homelessness this year” is much easier said than done. We recognize that. That’s why the Alliance will be providing as much guidance to communities as possible throughout the year.

Recently, several policy experts at the Alliance put their heads together to examine communities that have made real progress on ending veteran homelessness (and overall homelessness) to see how they are doing it. We’ve distilled that knowledge into this document, “Five Steps to End Veteran Homelessness,” which, as the title suggests, outlines the five major steps that communities must take to get the job done.

Ending Chronic Homelessness, Now in 2017

February 23, 2015

Over the years, chronic homelessness in America has dropped significantly. Thanks to the hard work of housing agencies, and advocates in communities around the country, working with the support of federal policies, the number of individuals experiencing chronic homelessness has declined by 21 percent since 2010.

Even so, on a given night, more than 80,000 individuals experience chronic homelessness, which means they are disabled and have experienced homelessness either for a year or longer or at least four times in the last three years. Chronically homeless people make up less than 15 percent of the overall population on a given night, but they are the most vulnerable, and therefore the most in need of our help.

(It’s also cheaper to house them than let them remain homelessness, when you weigh the cost in social services against the cost of providing them with housing services.)

That’s why, back in 2010, the Obama administration set a goal for ending chronic homelessness by the end of 2016 in “Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness.” That’s a year later than the date the administration set for ending veteran homelessness, and while we’re optimistic about ending veteran homelessness by the end of 2015 (and we’re not alone), ending chronic homelessness by the end of 2016 seemed increasingly unlikely.

See You Tomorrow at the 2015 Family and Youth Conference!

February 18, 2015

We’re looking forward to seeing you in San Diego this week for our 2015 National Conference on Ending Family and Youth Homelessness. Here in DC, as you may already be aware, we just had a ton of snow dumped on us. Some of us had our flights to San Diego canceled, and we’ve had to scramble to make new arrangements. But so far it looks like we’re all going to make it.

If you’re going to be there, please consider sharing your experience on social media using the conference hashtag #NAEH15. If you aren’t attending, you can keep up with the conference on Twitter, on the Alliance blog, and the Alliance Facebook page. Alliance staff will be tweeting about conference content, events, and speakers throughout the event.

How do Communities Use their Limited Resources to Help Homeless People?

February 12, 2015

Homeless assistance systems, as we all know, have limited resources. This means that they often cannot serve everyone. To make the most of their available resources, many communities try to serve the subpopulations and individuals who are most in need of help. Doing that, however, can be tricky.

Communities must first identify the most vulnerable persons and then match them with the most appropriate services. Experts have devised a variety of tools for communities to use to accomplish this daunting task. These tools are administered by workers in the homeless assistance system, who ask people experiencing homelessness questions in order to determine the degree of their vulnerability, as well as what services they should receive.

(Here at the Alliance we have developed our own tool for communities: The Alliance Comprehensive Assessment tool.)

There is wide variety in the assessment tools that communities use and how they use them. Last fall, the Alliance and the Office of Policy Development and Research of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) brought together leading homelessness experts from around the country for an expert convening to discuss the assessment tools that communities use and what questions they should include.

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