For its fifth National Conference on Ending Family Homelessness, the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) chose the theme "Making Progress in a Time of Challenge." The theme felt even more appropriate - and urgent - amidst ongoing news of massive layoffs across the country and of Congress struggling to negotiate terms for the $787 billion stimulus package.

The NAEH conference, held in San Diego on February 12th and 13th, brought together hundreds of homeless service providers, advocates, and activists to share best practices, learn from one another's experiences, and to discuss "detailed, practical strategies" to end family homelessness. Workshop topics ranged from direct service concerns to broad-based advocacy strategies.

Building Changes had a hand in several of the conference offerings: Deputy Director Alice Shobe, moderated one of the first workshops of the conference, an "Introduction to Ending Family Homelessness." In this session, leaders from around the country shared their perspectives on systems change and delivery design in the family homelessness field. Emily Nolan, Washington Families Fund Manager, and Ranita Jain, Performance Measurement Specialist, each presented as part of the workshop "Service-Intensive Interventions: Targeting and Design." This workshop was remarkable in that the panelists did an excellent job of connecting the dots between trauma and chronic homelessness-and what services look like for this challenging population. Finally, Washington Families Fund grantee agency Yakima Neighborhood Health participated in the workshop "Preventing and Ending Family Homelessness in Rural Communities," a discussion that engaged rural providers from across the country on the difficulty of tracking and retaining clients in a rural environment.

The keynote speaker at the conference, Lynn Rosenthal of the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence, again brought home the deep-seated relationship between trauma, domestic violence, and family homelessness. She said that as the economy has taken a downturn, reported incidences of domestic violence have increased dramatically. She called us to action as homeless service providers and advocates, saying that we need to work as a society to change the "culture of masculinity" - a culture that inherently puts women in a lesser role and that, whether implicitly or explicitly, condones violence against women. This is a daunting task, but it felt relevant in light of the many stories presenters had told about the trauma that had caused their clients to become homeless in the first place.

BC staffer and conference presenter Emily Nolan shared her impressions, saying "I was impressed and inspired by all of the creative work going on around the country to address family homelessness. The providers and government folks that I heard talk were anxious about the economic situation in our country and what it means for their programs, but at the same time I heard people talking about how this time can be used as an opportunity to re-shape programs, funding and build new partnerships. The conference reenergized me about the work we do at Building Changes and the impact that we can have both at a state and national level working on the issues that affect homeless families."

Said fellow BC staffer and co-presenter Ranita Jain, "The conference was a great opportunity to learn about the implementation of best practices for family homelessness programs across the country. I often read research documenting the effectiveness of prevention, housing first and permanent supportive housing practices. But, it is a rare and valuable opportunity to learn how communities are effectively implementing these program models. The conference also provided a unique opportunity to learn how other communities are working across sectors (i.e. with their TANF or workforce development agencies) to leverage funds and provide more comprehensive services for homeless families. I'm excited to bring these ideas back to Building Changes in thinking about improving our programs moving forward."

Conference materials are now available here.