When It Comes to Ending Homelessness, Pierce County Isn't Afraid to Think Big
When It Comes to Ending Homelessness, Pierce County Isn't Afraid to Think Big
The following prepared remarks were made by Building Changes' Deputy Director, Alice Shobe, at the Tacoma-Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness Annual Luncheon on November 15, 2011.
Opening
A friend of mine, who I don't see very often, has a habit of asking me, "What season are you in now?"
He's trying to gauge my state of mind and how things have changed since we last met. Is my life colorful and filled with growth like summer?
Or am I quiet and avoiding risk? Perhaps struggling in the dead of winter?
Sometimes I know instantly what season I'm in, and sometimes I need some outside feedback or insight to clearly answer that question.
In preparing my remarks for today, I asked the question, "In its efforts to end homelessness, what season is Pierce County in right now?"
What would you say?
While you think about that I'm going to do two things:
First, I'll offer insights into the path we've been on as a country in our efforts to address family homelessness for the last 30 years.
Then, I'll reflect on what Pierce County is doing and why I think it feels like Spring here.
Background on the Homeless System, Sound Families and Washington Families Fund
To fully appreciate the work that we're doing now, I want to walk us back to the 1980s when homelessness first became a widespread phenomenon throughout our country.
At the time, the public first began to witness homeless individuals - mostly men - sleeping in doorways or under bridges and pushing their belongings in shopping carts.
Because we now had a visible face of homelessness, what we now call the "homeless system" rose up to serve them.
The solution?
Emergency shelters - shared living facilities where people could spend the night and stay out of the cold ... but there wasn't much in the way of privacy and sometimes even personal safety.
Then we began to notice that there were families who were homeless - most typically a single mother and two children. (In fact, in this decade, families have become the fastest growing segment of the homeless population.)
It became clear that emergency shelter was not appropriate for families.
So in response, the federal government began promoting and funding a new approach - the Continuum of Care. Transitional housing, became and the go-to model for serving families.
Families who got into transitional housing could stay up to two years. During that time, they were required to participate in a pre-set package of services that varied depending on which program they got into. Services typically included case management, financial planning, and parenting and life skills.
The thinking at the time was that families became homeless because they needed to FIX themselves to become "Housing Ready." If we paired housing with services, homeless families could have a place to stay AND get the services they needed. Then they would then go out and be able to find permanent housing.
That was the best national thinking when the Gates Foundation's Sound Families initiative was launched in 2001.
Sound Families was a rich collaboration among Pierce, King, and Snohomish counties, their Housing Authorities, and the Gates Foundation. We set an ambitious goal to triple the supply of housing paired with services.
We did some great work here in Pierce County - 250 new transitional housing units were created using public and private resources. A lot of children and their parents benefitted from this housing, and our evaluation data showed their lives improved.
We took the success of Sound Families and expanded this concept to serve the entire state.
The State of Washington and 25 private philanthropic investors ultimately joined to create the Washington Families Fund. Through this program, led by Building Changes, we paired another five years of service funding with 662 units in the State; 126 housing units of which are in Pierce County.
Again, the results have been promising. After five years, Washington Families Fund data showed:
- Nearly three-quarters of all families moved into permanent housing after leaving the programs.
- More than half the families increased their income.
- The number of children who were able to stay in their one school - rather than transfer repeatedly or drop out altogether - increased by 80 percent.
Despite these successes, the problem was the number of homeless families continued to rise in Pierce County and throughout the state and country. Our efforts, while beneficial to individual families, was not reversing a troubling trend ... more children living in cars, camp grounds, or couch surfing with their parents.
This was exacerbated when, in 2009, our economy crashed. There are now more homeless families and individuals than ever before.
So what did we do?
By then, we were already digging deeper into the evaluation data we had through Sound Families and the Washington Families Fund. We had noticed that about one quarter of families seemed to need a deeper level of services but most did not. Around the same time, the Gates Foundation conducted a national scan of the emerging thinking on the best ways to end family homelessness.
We learned that most homeless families are not all that different from the poor families who don't lose their housing. What pushes them over the edge is a crisis: domestic violence, a job loss, or major illness. Yet because they are poor, they have a very thin margin for error.
That got us and the federal government wondering: Do all families need to go through transitional housing-which can cost up to $45,000 per episode of homelessness? Or should that resource be allocated only to extremely vulnerable families with the most complex needs? Does everyone need to participate in a pre-set bundle of services that their transitional housing program requires?
Maybe some families just need rental assistance to get them back in housing ... or help them stay where they are rather than get evicted. That cost averages just $7,000 a year.
If they did need services, what if we tailored the services to meet the specific needs of each family? How would we do that?
The federal government responded by adopting -its first federal plan to end homelessness in 2010. That plan - and revisions to federal policy called the HEARTH Act - encourage and support communities like Pierce County to transform their homeless systems; to focus more on preventing homelessness or rapidly returning people to housing who have become homeless.
The federal plan also challenges itself, states, and local communities to do a better job of connecting resources and systems. The plan recognizes that departments focused on health, employment, child welfare, education, and housing all play a key role in ending homelessness.
In 2010, almost simultaneously, Pierce County adopted its own plan, Outside In: A Plan to End Family Homelessness.
Let me now dig deeper into what's happening here in Pierce County.
Pierce County Accomplishments
One thing I know about Pierce County: You aren't afraid to think big ... even when times are tough.
We all know how challenging the last few years have been. We've heard the constant stream of bad economic news. We've watched government make deep and painful budget cuts.
It could have been a time when those of us working to end homelessness became discouraged ... even scaled back our efforts due to fewer resources.
But Pierce County didn't do that. In fact, you did the opposite.
You're now at the forefront of a whole new way of serving people experiencing homelessness. You aspire over the long run to help more people move toward self-sufficiency and to bring cost-savings to the system.
Many of us were there two years ago when we first began talking about how we could tackle homelessness in new and innovative ways.
The conversations included the three Puget Sound counties-Pierce, King, and Snohomish-along with funders like the Gates Foundation and my organization-Building Changes.
I want to give a special shout out to Executive Pat McCarthy who made addressing homelessness a priority in her administration shortly after being elected to office; and to Mayor Strickland for quickly lending her support and encouraging deep collaboration between the City and County.
At the time, Pierce County studied national research-based best practices and began thinking about how to apply them at home.
To be totally honest with you, at the time, I thought Pierce County would be the underdog in this new process.
But, instead, you were the first one out of the gate .... You were the first to implement not one ... not two ... but multiple new projects that demonstrate new kinds of collaboration and innovation.
Centralized Intake
Let me first talk about Centralized Intake.
Until this year, if you became homeless in Pierce County, you had to call program after program until you found one with space for you.
Now, you don't have to make 10 or 15 calls. You just have to make one.
In Puget Sound, Pierce was the first to implement its "centralized intake" system. Basically, it's a one-stop location that people can call or visit in person to seek housing assistance.
When you stop to think about it, it was morally courageous yet institutionally daunting to set this up in the midst of a deep recession. We pooled public and private funding, identified Associated Ministries as the county's partner, and launched this new system.
Immediately, we saw how deep the need was: 12,000 separate households called for help in 8 months. 12,000. Most of the callers are single mothers with children and people who've seen their public benefits disappear with budget cuts.
I want to say hats off to Associated Ministries, led by Chris Morton, for working so closely with the County and City to set up this new system. This is new territory and tough work. They've worked overtime to respond to the overwhelming need; In a short time, they've added more people to help-housing specialists, interns and volunteers.
It hasn't been easy, and things aren't perfect. Initially, the flood of calls meant sometimes they couldn't get back to people for days and even weeks.
But the coordinated entry system is already showing results:
- Nearly zero percent vacancy rate in existing below market housing. It used to average about 15 percent. Coordinated entry is connecting people to available housing - quickly.
- We're preventing homelessness. More than 400 households have received small amounts of assistance that kept them housed.
- And importantly, we understand the scale of need in Pierce County. This one stop depository of real-time data enables Pierce County to make quick strategic decisions about how and where to apply resources.
Cross-Systems Partnerships
We've also learned over the past three decades that we can't afford to "replicate" services within housing. We need to do a better job of connecting families with services already available and funded in our communities.
We need to do a better job of connecting resources within and betweenbig systems like Veteran Affairs, Labor, Education.
I want to give you two quick examples where Pierce County is blazing this new kind of system change.
First, today you awarded the Tacoma Housing Authority for the McCarver Elementary School Housing Project.
Here are two entities that-on the surface-appear to be serving entirely different needs: housing people and providing free, public education.
But in fact, they discovered that they are serving the same population: low-income families who have such a hard time finding affordable housing they can't keep their children in the same school month to month, year to year.
The second such example is the Employment Navigator program implemented by Workforce Central, Pierce County Housing Authority and several service providers.
In this case, housing providers, such as the YWCA and LASA identify families ready to participate in vocational training programs. They coordinate with the Employment Navigator, aka, Linette Davis at Workforce Central, other case managers at the state Department of Health and Social Services, and local technical and community colleges. They have one shared goal: to provide parents with the job skills needed to secure employment in high-demand fields, like health care.
Linette's worked with nearly 40 parents since the start of this year. Some of these parents have never completed high school or walked on a college campus. What inspires Linette is watching parents build up their confidence and securing new jobs.
Funders Group
We know true change requires more than hard working parents and front line case managers.
The organizations that fund change have their own heavy lifting to do.
Last year, representatives from the Cities of Tacoma and Lakewood, Pierce County, United Way, the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, Workforce Central, Tacoma and Pierce County Housing Authorities, and Building Changes came together to create Pierce County Oversight Group of Funders.
Our goal is to plan and implement together so as to best deploy our valuable resources.
How will the community see the results of this new Funders Group?
Members have agreed to align policies to support the Outside In plan. Earlier this year we had our first "combined" application for funding more than one agency allocating funds with one application.
We are aligning our organizational policies and strategies in advance so direct service organizations spend less time "packaging" multiple sources of funding.
And here's the really sexy part ... In the future we plan to further align or combine monitoring and evaluation efforts - thereby reducing administrative time for everyone. We'll also work together to change conflicting regulations or policies.
Others Are Looking to Us
There's been a lot of sweat and maybe even some tears as we've worked together to implement this vast and ambitious new system.
Let's just recap what we've accomplished in this last year:
- We're reforming the Pierce County's homeless "entry" system. We opened up a line of communication that allows us to hear every request for help.
- We're working to tailor services provided to individual needs. With the goal of getting people what they need and not putting them in costly programs they DON'T need.
- We're building bridges between existing systems and housing. We've got cutting edge work being done with Workforce Central and Tacoma Public Schools and we have plans for more.
- On the funders' level, we're coordinating available resources, streamlining the application process, and smoothing out regulatory and funding requirement bumps.
I'm so inspired by Pierce County, but I'm going to be honest with you: We have a long road ahead of us.
When you take on a challenge as big as homelessness, it's inevitable that mistakes will be made, progress will come in fits and starts, and solving one problem shines the light on the next one.
For example, one benefit of the centralized intake system is that we reduced vacancy rates of publically subsidized units down to nearly zero: There aren't many empty units sitting around while people live on the streets.
But there are still many people in need of housing... so we now have to focus more deeply on increasing family incomes and adding more affordable housing stock.
I remain hopeful and enthusiastic ... I'm even beginning to feel a little sunshine.
One sign that you're doing things right is that other people are taking notice and asking how they can replicate what you're doing. Every week, Pierce County is getting inquiries about your centralized intake system from throughout our State, and others like California, Minnesota, Iowa, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Texas
The federal government has taken notice of you. As they examine how their multiple agencies can better partner they've turned to Pierce County. Just last year, federal officials from D.C. visited Pierce County to study the seeds of your new efforts.
Conclusion
In conclusion, how do we balance the excitement of progress and the realities of our current economy?
As I said earlier, I think it's helpful to think about the seasons.
As we gather today with the winter solstice on our near horizon, I think it is actually spring here in Pierce County.
I was recently reading the work of Celtic poet John O'Donahue, who wrote, "At the heart of the spring, there is a great inner longing."
I have a longing to see every child and adult housed in Pierce County.
O'Donahue also quoted an old Zen mystic who said "when one flower blooms it is spring everywhere."
I'm seeing lots of blooms here in Pierce County.
Thank you for inviting me here today. I am humbled and honored to continue our work to end homelessness together.
