At the Alliance, Mary Frances Kenion is the Vice President for Training and Technical Assistance and Marcy Thompson is the Vice President for Programs and Policy. Though they started on the same day at the Alliance nearly two years ago, their journeys as individuals working in homeless services connected them as colleagues and co-conspirators nearly five years ago when they worked together as technical assistance providers.
This moment is precarious and has generated a lot of uncertainty about the future of homeless services. Every year since 2020 has brought a new, “unprecedented” development, but the homelessness field has persisted through it. A lot of existential questions have emerged; providers aren’t sure of their funding status; more people may become homeless.
Despite it all, the homeless services field has always done hard things, and will continue to do hard things. In this blog post, Mary Frances and Marcy reflect on what their work has taught them about how the homeless services field is poised to meet this moment.
#1. The homeless services field is adaptable.
During my nearly 18 years in this field, I’ve been a system leader (Continuum of Care lead) and technical assistance provider (both state and federal), but it is my roots in direct service that keep me grounded. I started as a daycare worker at an emergency shelter for families in 2007. While the work remained consistent, the tools we had to address homelessness changed: by the early 2010s, we had tools like Rapid Re-Housing, a Coordinated Entry system, shelter diversion, by-name lists for veterans, and an approach called Housing First.
Mary Frances Kenion
There was this new, radical idea that homelessness was not just a problem to be managed, but it was a problem that could be solved. As the landscape changed, the homeless services field rose to meet these needs at every occasion.”
I too started out in direct service, as a behavioral health case manager for the local Shelter Plus Care program. But most of my career was as a federal employee (first at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and later at the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness), spanning 14 years and across 4 different administrations, both Republican and Democrat. I got to be a part of the big shifts that happened in our sector — the federal adoption of Housing First, the creation of federal criteria and benchmarks to end veteran and chronic homelessness, the development and implementation of brand-new regulations for HUD’s homeless assistance grants, and the writing of a new, bold federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness.
Marcy Thompson
The field made these shifts because we had to. And we can shift again.”
#2. Our field is special.
It was during my time as a HUD technical assistance provider that I really came to understand how special the homeless services field is. As I worked with communities all around the country, I witnessed the selflessness, the commitment, and the pure grit of people working to end homelessness. You adapt. You stretch. You do whatever it takes because people’s lives depend on it.”
Marcy Thompson
#3. Our field is resilient.
As 2019 was ending, it felt like we were on a roll, convinced that we were well on our way to ending homelessness.
Mary Frances Kenion
“No one could have guessed that within a few months, the world would shift on its axis yet again. There would be a global pandemic, a racial reckoning (or so I thought), and an affordable housing crisis that would no longer just impact those communities on the coasts. There was no playbook for this. Yet again, we would have to learn new things and adapt. Having to show up to work despite the weight of the world in 2020 was rough, but I didn’t want any of our people who were homeless outdoors or in congregate shelters to die. I didn’t want to die. We got to work, because people’s lives depended on it.
That is what matters now: showing up. People’s lives still depend on us and the work we do. In the past two decades, the field has faced unprecedented challenges. How many times have we heard that word — “unprecedented” — in the past five years? We’re in that moment again. We got through before, and we can do it again.”
#4. We can do hard things.
In June 2020, I transitioned out of community-level work to become a national technical assistance provider. I was driven to do more to help communities across the country with their pandemic response. This is when I first met Marcy, who quickly became my co-conspirator in this work to end homelessness. Before she left the firm where we worked, she told me, ‘Mary Frances, don’t forget that you can do hard things.’ That has stuck with me.”
Mary Frances Kenion
Long before I met Mary Frances, when I left HUD in 2017, at a time of great trepidation, my former — and now current — boss, Ann Oliva told me that I could do hard things.
Marcy Thompson
Yet now, here we are, in 2025 — in yet another time of fear, economic uncertainty, and a polarizing political environment that is changing the landscape in which we operate every day, sometimes, every hour. There is so much unknown in this moment but something that we know to be true is that we, individually and collectively, can do hard things.”
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