David Wertheimer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we recently launched a new set of investments to support the goal of ending family homelessness in the Puget Sound region within the next 10 years. Working with demonstration communities in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties and with the Washington Families Fund (WFF), we are tackling one of the thorniest issues facing our communities these days–especially in light of the current recession.
The foundation, in partnership with WFF, will invest in five strategy components that we believe are essential to building a high-performing system to address the needs of families at risk of losing their housing. These five components are:
- Coordinated entry: Using common point(s) of entry to identify what families in crisis need up-front, as early and as quickly as possible.
- Prevention efforts: Working to keep as many families as possible in their existing housing through services such as eviction prevention and landlord mediation.
- Rapid re-housing: Minimizing lengths of stay in shelter for as many families as possible before they return to permanent housing.
- Tailored services and programs: Getting the right services to the right families at the right time for the right duration.
- Economic opportunity: Helping wage-earners in families access the training, education, and workforce development opportunities that can lead to jobs that pay a family living wage.
Our investment strategy is based in part on successful examples of activities across the country, where significant reductions in family homelessness have been documented over time. As our key partners at the county, state, and organizational levels begin their own planning work related to implementation of the five funding areas identified above, we decided to sponsor a visit to two communities that are doing some particularly innovative work: Chicago, Illinois and Minneapolis/Hennepin County, Minnesota.
During a whirlwind trip from June 9 – 12, 13 representatives from Washington visited programs, engaged with staff, questioned core concepts, and examined measured results. Not to mention that we ate up a storm at some fun restaurants in both cities–always with an agenda for discussion with local hosts!
It is difficult to describe the value of actually seeing the work going on in these communities first-hand. It is one thing (and quite helpful) to read reports about what is happening in a given system. But that up close and personal approach–where a visitor can get the actual flavor of what is happening on the ground–to see and experience the work as it is unfolding in a given setting–is invaluable.
In Chicago, we were struck by the effectiveness of a Homelessness Prevention Call Center that receives screened referrals directly from the city’s 311 system and works to keep families in their housing rather than enter the shelter system. We learned how the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services has decided to invest a significant amount of their federal stimulus funds into a pilot project with the Chicago Public School system to test a new approach to stabilizing the households of children that have been identified as homeless by the McKinney-Vento workers in their schools. We saw a demonstration of a new Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) “Housing Options Tool” that can help to match the specific profile of a person or family seeking housing with the programs and services available in a given community.
In Hennepin County, we spoke with the staff performing the central intake function seeking to promote diversion 
from shelter wherever possible. We saw the enormous value of employing staff for this work that have themselves experienced homelessness and offer both wisdom gained on the streets and powerful role models of successful recovery. We explored Hennepin’s rapid re-housing model that minimizes the length of stay in shelter for each family and learned about the stresses and strains that have been put on their system by the economic downturn and foreclosure crisis that too often forces families renting in foreclosed units onto the streets and into shelters. We engaged in a hearty and at times passionate discussion about the most appropriate outcomes for measuring success–is keeping families out of shelter the right measure or should we be aiming at a different set of outcomes that seek to promote longer-term stability for families over time?
In both cities, we were impressed by the energy, passion, and drive that have been applied by government agencies, non-profit organizations, and representatives from the business and philanthropic sectors. In Chicago, a group of private sector funders have been collaborating closely for more than a decade to ensure that their funding is carefully aligned with the primary goals of the system. In Hennepin County, funders and providers are working together to understand and address the new stresses being placed on the system by the current economic environment.
In short, the trip was an enormous success. The bakers dozen of us who went on the trip all slept on the plane most of the way back to Seattle–and agreed that it would have been difficult to sustain even one more day at the pace we had maintained during the visits. Nevertheless, we came back from these communities re-invigorated about the importance of work that we are doing, the amazing passion and energy that is being applied around the country to the task of ending homelessness, and the impact that dedicated people can have in making real change happen working together with families struggling to stabilize their lives after the brutalities of homelessness.
David Wertheimer is Senior Program Officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington. David carries lead responsibilities for oversight of the foundation’s programs addressing housing and family homelessness, and also serves on the national Steering Committee for Funders Together.
