There’s A Difference Between Wanting to End Homelessness and Committing to End Homelessness
If you work in the homeless service sector you should have a very simple career goal – to put yourself out of a job.
I have this belief that homeless and housing support services exist to end homelessness. They don’t exist to make people in human services feel good about themselves. They don’t exist to cleanse the consciousness of corporations through their philanthropy. They don’t exist to keep government bureaucracies humming along.
There is a difference between wanting to end homelessness and committing to end homelessness.
If you want to do something, you may or may not achieve it, and likely only under certain favorable conditions.
If you commit to do something you will have steadfast fixity of purpose. When the conditions are unfavorable you will be the catalyst to actively change those conditions, remaining solution-focused all the while instead of accepting barriers as immovable, intractable problems that get in the way of ending homelessness.
Am I so naïve to think we will never need homeless shelters again? Heck no. But we will have a lot less of them and they will return to their original use – short term, infrequent stays to meet emergency needs. They will no longer be de facto housing. They will no longer be places that we load in program incentives that actually make it difficult to leave. I like to think of homeless shelters in the same way that I think of fire stations – I hope I never need the fire department, but I sure am glad they are around when there is an emergency.
When I make a commitment to end homelessness, I am talking about the entire spectrum of homeless people. Statistically speaking, most people who use alcohol or other drugs are housed – including people with addictions – and therefore I see no reason for homeless people to have to be clean and sober unless that is there choice to be so. My commitment to end homelessness includes people who are actively using…like millions of other people around the world who actively use and have housing.
Statistically speaking, most people with compromised mental wellness – including people who don’t take their meds or see their psychiatrist – never experience homelessness, so I see no reason for homeless people to see psychiatrists or take their meds unless that is there choice to be so. My commitment to end homelessness includes people who are unwell and “non-compliant”…like millions of other people around the world who are in similar circumstances and have housing.
I commit to ending homelessness for people who believe in Jesus as well as those that don’t. If people want to be baptized or join a faith group and begin to worship, so be it. But Christianity – or any other religious belief – is not a requirement to be successfully housed. There are millions of other people around the world who are atheists, agnostics, infidels or skeptics and have housing.
I commit to ending homelessness for people who have experienced conflict with the law, including those people that have done awful things to other human beings young and old. For one, I believe that time served is time served; that the sentence does not continue post-release. For another, and entirely pragmatically, if the evidence is clear that re-offending goes down if people have secure housing, isn’t that in my best interest? There are millions of people around the world that have been incarcerated and gone on to be successfully housed.
So you got a plan to end homelessness? Is that something you want to do or is that something you are committed to doing? The way you go about implementing the plan takes on completely different characteristics depending on which one you believe. And it usually points to particular biases in avoiding service of particular populations, whether it is explicit or not.
So your organization delivers services to people that are homeless? How about putting up on the wall somewhere for everyone to see that your ambition is to solve people’s homelessness so that your organization is no longer required? That you are working for the day where you can close the doors of your drop-in center, sell your outreach vans, give away the beds you no longer need in the shelter, etc.?
I can tell commitment when I see it, and I suspect you can too.
Commitment results in some organizations losing their money because they only wanted to serve homeless people (not end their homelessness) and reinvested in organizations that are committed to ending people’s homelessness.
Commitment results in using data to drive program change and improvements, to reflect on practice and make tough decisions, not as something that is nice to have in annual reports or collected only because some funder asked for it.
Commitment results in recruiting highly skilled people that have a passion for professional development and see their work as professional, not well-intentioned people who have neither the experience nor expertise.
Commitment results in doing your homework to see what else is working, not assuming that you are automatically doing the best work or, heaven forbid, trying to “create a best practice”.
Commitment results in having external folks – other professionals, senior managers from other agencies, funder staff – review and provide helpful commentary on how to make your work even better, not shielding away from criticism or doing nothing with information when it is provided by highly qualified people.
Commitment changes the way we talk about the issues and what we are going to do about it. No longer do we say people “aren’t housing ready” or “service resistant” or any other such phrase. No, committed folks turn that around and instead of blaming the consumer of services instead ask themselves what other types of housing or other types of services do I need to offer to be inclusive of all homeless people?
Want is an inclination. It is a desire. It can be directed to a specific need. But there is no obligation to address wants.
Commitment is a pledge. It is a promise. It means that you are going to do it. It has integrity. It is not just a dream. It is not lip service. It is putting the promise into action. Once you commit – trulycommit – you are obligated to make it happen.
Many times I have seen drafts of 10 Year Plans expurgate those sections that speak of commitment or making tough choices, thinking, I suppose, that cleaning out those sections – with the obscene suggestion that we have to do things differently – will make the document more inclusive and readily accepted. Great, so a wide-range of service providers are happy, but what about the people that are supposed to be served by those providers?
I don’t accept homelessness. I am committed to end it. I will speak truth to power in the process. I hope you will too.
Vacuum Sales and Organizational Reporting
When I lived in a Fine Arts Residence 20 or so years ago, I saw, heard and read all sorts of weird and wonderful things that I don’t think I would have ever experienced in any other setting. One of those experiences was a weekly group reading of Raymond Carver’s 1976 collection of short stories called Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? If you aren’t familiar with Carver, he is a rather gloomy, minimalist writer in the “New Realism” school. Time and location aren’t always clear in his short stories. So different than other literature I had been exposed to in high school, I really enjoyed Carver.
One of the short stories contained within Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? is called Collectors. In a nutshell there is an unemployed guy waiting at home for mail to come (as I recall), and instead a door-to-door vacuum salesman arrives. My impression from the story is that the vacuum salesman knew that a sale was unlikely/impossible, yet he enters into the home and does the full vacuum demonstration anyway. It comes across as absurd – yet depressingly realistic – as the vacuum salesperson goes through the complete sales pitch, in what seems to take hours, to someone who will never buy the product. (There is even some confusion in the story as to whether the vacuum salesman is speaking with the right person.)
A couple of paragraphs in, I suspect some of you are wondering what the heck this has to do with the usual blog content.
Well, I have been thinking quite a bit over the past few months about how and to whom organizations report to, what the process is really all about and whose interests it serves. I think if we don’t get four critical questions and answers right any type of funding and accountability goes out the window regardless of whether we are investing in education, health care, housing, homelessness, employment programs, etc. The four important questions to me are:
1. When do organizations report?
A lot of times this is an annual exercise. There are lost opportunities for internal improvements and messaging if it doesn’t happen ideally monthly, quarterly at a minimum.
2. What is the purpose of the reporting?
It should be to fulfill all aspects of Performance Management, not just Performance Measurement. Yes, there will be some backward looking accounting at outputs and expenses to date, but the real purpose of reporting should be forward looking. Reports should inform program improvements, managerial and board decisions, policy development, research and human resources. We should also use reports as a communication vehicle with the people that are served, at staff meetings, with funders and with the broader community.
3. When are those reports accepted or rejected by decision-makers?
Most often reports are passively accepted. There may be some monitoring in some communities, but it isn’t as rigorous as I think it should be. But rejecting a report? Almost unheard of, yet crucially important. I think if we want to change the culture within organizations to be evidence-informed and data-driven in their decision making then scrutiny of reports has to start internally with the organization. If an organization is willing to ask the hard questions of themselves then they are more apt to want to engage in dialogue with the tough questions externally.
4. What are the consequences of having their reports accepted or rejected?
This, too, has two sides. We need to celebrate and promote those organizations and communities that take reporting seriously, do a bang up job and it informs their practice. And for those that are rejected, the starting point has to be program and reporting remediation. It is only after that has not been successful that I would advocate for pulling funding. But make no mistake about it, even with considerable political pressures at times, if a program sucks and is not defensible I am a strong advocate for decreasing or rescinding funding and reinvesting that money in programs that are proven to work. Yes some people’s jobs will be at risk. But you know what? As far as I am concerned some people’s lives are at risk if we aren’t investing in the right programs at the right times to do the right things.
Which takes me back to Carver’s Collectors. If we aren’t going to take reporting seriously, isn’t that akin to selling a vacuum to someone who will never buy it – a complete waste of time? If we don’t do anything – positively or negatively – with reports when received, isn’t that much like the unemployed guy who really can’t get a vacuum yet the demonstration is filling his time? And if recipients of reports don’t really know what to do with them, isn’t that kind of like the confusion of the vacuum salesman who may have the wrong person?
For goodness sake, don’t report for reporting sake. We are all too busy for that. Report because it makes a difference, and it will only make a difference if reporting is taken seriously internally and externally – if there are consequences to what the reports demonstrate.
5 Questions Organizations and Communities Must Ask to Improve Service and Themselves
I love the work we get to do with specific organizations and communities to help them make the change in becoming even better at their work. In the back of my mind, as I do this work, there are several questions that I try to have answered, and I encourage you to reflect on your own organization and community as you go through these questions:
1. Has the organization/community grown complacent?
I haven’t found a good measure for complacency, but there are a couple of sure-fire indicators that I pay attention to – and they happen in tandem. The first is complete satisfaction with how things are; the second is active rejection of how things might be.
The adage “grow or die” is true. That doesn’t mean to get bigger. It just means that organizations and communities have to be thirsty for information and training that enhances professional development; that they have to grow in their ability to provide efficiency or effectiveness in service delivery; and, they have to grow in such a way that ensures that what they are doing happens within a broader framework of service excellence.
I encourage people to, as appropriate, break the mold. Some people say things like “thinking outside the box”, but in some instances I think the better question is “What box?” I have never met an excellent organization/community that was happy with “good enough”.
2. What is the organization/community currently doing well?
Too often when people look at change they focus all of their energy on negatives or opportunities for improvement. In a strength-based approach I think the first step must always be to take a good look around and see what is working well. Chances are there will be some foundational pieces – people, processes, assets or technology – that can be built upon in the change process. Time and again we can build change by leveraging what is working well. And the morale of people shifts more positively when they can feel a sense of pride and ownership over pieces of work that are happening well.
3. What can the organization/community do better?
If the answer is “everything” that really means “nothing”. The purpose of this question is to focus attention on no more than 3-5 strategic or operational priorities at a time. Accomplish those change priorities well and then re-group to agree on the next 3-5. Too many times organizations/communities crash and burn because they are trying to function with too much weight of change that grinds them to a halt; or they appear rudderless and without direction because they haven’t been able to clearly and succinctly articulate those 3-5 strategic or operational priorities.
Of all five questions, determining what to do better must resonate top to bottom within the organization, and more so than the other questions, can benefit most from external expertise and analysis. Someone removed from the organization day in and day out may have an easier time zooming out and panning around before zooming back in on the most important areas to focus attention.
Organizations/communities are also more likely to need professional training, support and/or technical advice in some areas where improvements are necessary. Whenever possible, this should be included as part of the annual budget.
4. Does the organization/community listen and learn from the people that they serve?
It is frustrating to hear an organization/community talk about the needs of the people they serve when they have not first systematically and defensibly gathered information directly from those individuals. There are several important parts of this statement, so let’s break it down:
It has to be systematic. That is, it requires a plan and a defensible methodology. No sample sizes of one. No anecdotes used in place of hard facts.
It has to be defensible. This again refers to the approach used to gather the information. If people can poke holes in how the information was pulled together or analyzed they are more likely to discount the findings.
It has to be directly from the people served (except in those very rare cases where legally it must be another person). This avoids potential spin and factual inaccuracies. It removes potential agendas. It increases accountability.
Over all of my years of service, one of the many lessons I have seen learned time and time again is that what organizations/communities think and what they know are often two totally different concepts – and one that improves if the organization/community listens and learns from the people that they serve.
5. What seems likely to happen to the organization/community if change doesn’t happen?
I don’t have a crystal ball nor do I have a time machine that allows me to travel to the future (though I think it would be a neat premise for a movie if there was a car – like a Delorean – with a flux capacitor that, based upon a certain speed and about 1.21 jigawatts of power, allowed the people in the car to go forward or backward in time…but I digress). It seems impossible to me to absolutely predict what will happen. But I do think it is possible to monitor certain indicators and make informed opinions about the likelihood of some very specific things happening if those changes are not made. Scenario analysis can be very helpful for different people on the team to better understand how the future may unfold if changes do not happen.
All organizations/communities have a certain culture…a system of values and beliefs that holds them together; that drives actions; that informs behaviors; that influences relationships. It is never a matter of whether the culture exists. The real question is what kind do you have?
We have to evaluate on a fairly regular basis if we want to stay responsive and flexible to the needs of the people we serve. Reviewing these 5 questions is a good place to start.
Greatness is a Shared Responsibility: Why Collaboration is Important
This week I was in Detroit for a couple of days wrapping up an assignment we had been working on with the Homeless Action Network of Detroit on Performance Management. On Tuesday, I was making a presentation to the community on the most salient points and recommendations of our final report. What struck me during the delivery of the information was how important it is for greatness to be seen as a shared responsibility.
Want to end homelessness in your community? Not going to happen by one person or one organization. Not going to happen because the Continuum of Care wills it to be so. Not going to happen because external experts were brought in. It is only going to happen if there is a shared responsibility to work on greatness across all organizations, working in collaboration with the CoC, and where necessary, external experts.
The word “collaboration” is an interesting one. Let’s break it down (with apologies to those who have heard me make the same remarks during a keynote or presentation in the last six months or so…). “Collaboration” comes from the Latin “collaboratus” which means to “labor together” and came to rise in the 1860s after the Industrial Revolution and the organization of labor that resulted from the paradigm shift in the economy. [Aside #1 – while tempted to go on a diversion about social justice and the Chartist movement, I am showing considerable restraint. Aside #2 – “Collaboration” also came to have negative connotations in the 1940s in a treasonable sense, but we’ll park that for now. Aside #3 – methinks these parts of my blogs are perhaps too nerdy for some readers but I can’t help myself.]
To labor together.
Baseball Hall of Famer Casey Stengel once proclaimed: “Gettin’ good players is easy. Gettin’ ’em to play together is the hard part.”
When I think about Stengel’s quote what immediately comes to mind are all the organizations I have spent time with over the years that have some amazingly talented people working for them – yet that talent seems to work competitively within the organization rather than laboring together to achieve the mission of the organization. Sometimes it feels like different program areas in the same organization pit themselves against each other for no discernible reason.
Thomas Stallkamp, who has had a rather successful career in business and now leads a group called Collaborative Management remarked, “The secret is to gang up on the problem, rather than each other.”
Let us agree (please) that the problem we are trying to tackle is homelessness. A lot of work I do in communities is about getting organizations to focus on how the specific strengths of their organization assist in solving that problem. [Aside #4 – I feel somewhat nauseous each time an organization tells me they are the only ones in their community that works with really “hard to serve” or “hard to house” people and they wear it like a badge of courage and one-up-personship. For the sake of argument, let’s just say that all of you work with the really “hard” people that no other organization will work with. Aside #5 – I despise the phrases “hard to house” and “hard to serve” because it blames the people we are funded to serve for their hardship…ever think that maybe it is not that they are hard to house or hard to serve, but rather us that hasn’t offered the right – and dare I say easy – housing or service?]
We need to adjust the conversation towards how the greatness of each of us will be shared towards solving the problem, and how each of us will be responsible for our piece of the puzzle.
Social anthropology, human geography, sociology, history and biology all offer research contributions related to human civilizations and other animals (even some plants) that demonstrate time and again that those groups that have collaborated have prevailed over those that have not. There is sufficient evidence for my liking that if we want to prevail in ending homelessness we are going to have to collaborate…that our greatness in that pursuit is directly linked to us seeing the task as a shared responsibility.
So, let us truly labor together.
Let us all do our piece of work and take responsibility for our contributions.
Let us not send every difficult conversation or complex matter to a sub-committee or on the lap of one or two people, but rather grapple with it – labor through it until a conclusion is reached – together.
Let us team build not just within our organization, but across our community.
Let us train together to reach a common understanding of effective approaches.
Let us appreciate the strength of our diversity as we labor together – that “difference” is not de facto synonymous with “worse”.
Let us each contribute our talents collectively for the goal of ending homelessness.
Let us appreciate that some of us will always be smarter than one of us.
Let us banish thoughts that “collectivism” is somehow a weakness and embrace strength inherent with many passionate contributors to a great social issue.
Let us encourage a culture of inter-dependence across homeless and housing organizations so that they work as an integrated system, not a collection of projects or independent services operating in silos.
Let us not be afraid of the good debate as we labor together, grounding our opinions in fact instead of fiction or opinion.
Greatness is a shared responsibility. It requires us to labor together.
Be Awesome (And if you are already, please keep at it)
I haven’t figured out where along the way people think, “You know what would make for a great career? To work with chronically homeless people with a whole bunch of co-occurring complex issues and help them get and sustain housing.” – and then decide to do it for goodness sake. This pertains to the fine folks on the frontline, program administrators, policy wonks, foundation types, elected officials that give a darn about homeless people and a whole raft of other people.
The mesmerizing and at time perplexing thing is that some people do decide that this is exactly how they want to spend their lives. In communities large and small. In countries close and far. And it is awesome.
Be awesome. Pretty good mantra, right?
If you are awesome, continue to be awesome and take time out to teach others to be awesome.
If a belief in a higher power made you awesome, then thanks be to that higher power.
If you fell into this career by accident and found you were awesome at it, then continue to count your lucky stars and still be awesome.
If the Yoda adage “Do or do not. There is no try.” made you want to give this a go and you found out you are awesome at it, then thanks be to Yoda.
If (like me) you were attracted to this field because it was a social issue that no one had previously solved, then continue to inspire awesomeness in problem solving.
But what do I mean by “awesome”? I’m not talking some post 1980 slang for “outstanding”. I’m old school and a nerd. So I am reaching back to the 1670’s – “to inspire awe”. In this case “inspire” refers to the ability to create an urge; a feeling…to animate and impel. “Awe” refers to reverence and admiration on a grand, even sublime scale.
Those on the frontline will never get rich in a financial sense from this work. But their sense of self worth and investment in humankind inspire awe in me.
Those organizations and communities that take huge risks to focus on what data tells them rather than the good story spun by people prone to excuses rather than solutions, inspire awe in me.
Those politicians who dare to make homelessness an issue worth investing in and focusing attention on – and risking social and political capital in the process – inspire awe in me. (David Millerand Joe Mihevc will always be heroes of mine.)
Secretary Donovan from HUD on The Daily Show putting the costs and reason why we need to invest in Housing First into the living rooms of hundreds of thousands of people inspires awe in me.
Organizations that were pioneers in their community in making the move from managing homeless to ending homelessness – even before funding caught on to the idea – inspire awe in me.
The families who support their loved ones in working in human services, inspire awe in me. (As an aside, people like to talk a good game about practicing self-care but loads of people bring some of that emotion home or rely on home to provide the emotional strength for another day in the trenches. That cannot be ignored.)
Phenomenal organizations that remain committed to ending homelessness inspire awe in me. This is especially true when local sentiments from some rather vocal groups can be in opposition to their message and blatantly ignore facts.
Social media giants like Mark Horvath (@hardlynormal) who raise the public consciousness about the issue of homelessness and have lived experience, inspire awe in me. (As an aside, I don’t always agree with everything Mark says like the Homeless Hotspots, but I think we are enriched by the dialogue that he creates.)
Researchers who make homelessness – and solutions to it – the focus of their inquiry, inspire awe in me.
Temples, synagogues, churches and other places of worship that open their doors and have their congregants try to meet immediate emergency needs for shelter and food night after night without financial reward inspire awe in me.
Organizations like the USICH that have an array of resources for people to learn from, and the amazing staff of the organization like Barbara Poppe, Laura Zeilinger, Jennifer Ho and Anthony Love who continue to tirelessly organize, effectively engage with other orders of government and promote an end to homelessness, inspire awe in me.
The smiles on the face of homeless children, fervent in their belief that tomorrow will be better than today inspire awe in me.
Fundraisers with integrity who can eke out a few more dollars for the mission of their organization, even in a troubled economy, so that programs and services can keep on operating inspire awe in me.
The Dean (Barbara Rahder) in the faculty where I teach who supports my practitioner bent to academia in a Graduate learning environment inspires awe in me.
Risk takers in the public service who believe in solutions to homelessness and that different departments can and should work effectively with each other rather than at odds (even if well intentioned), inspire awe in me.
Community leaders who have considerable strengths while still thirsty for professional development, inspire awe in me.
Media outlets that shun the sensationalism of the story to focus on the triumph of the human spirit and programs that truly work, while remaining objective and with journalistic integrity (here’s looking at you a lot of the times New York Times), inspire awe in me.
Those who never lose the forest for the trees – people like Bill Hobson at DESC in Seattle who still sees value in each and every person who achieves housing – inspires awe in me.
Housing Locators who fervently believes in meeting the needs of landlords while having chronically homeless people achieve community, inspires awe in me.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness for the conferences they spend hours laboring on to organize and for the information that they share and for the lobbying that they do, inspire awe in me.
Organizations like the Homeless Action Network of Detroit that realize the imperfections and perfections in their community and work their butts off to address the former and celebrate the latter, inspire awe in me.
Organizations in smaller communities that realize they need rural and remote solutions to their homelessness issues and invest in training for their local community even when resources are limited, inspire awe in me.
The OrgCode staff who decide that social planning is a cool career choice, supporting non-profits and governments in ending homelessness, inspire awe in me.
My young kids who have already accepted that my job keeps me away from home for long stretches of time, but remain supportive even at their young age, truly inspire awe in me (and keep me going).
Awesomeness breeds awesomeness. Please be awesome to each other. Please be supportive of each other. Would love to hear what inspires awe in you in this work.
Please believe in the awesome idea that homelessness can be ended, measured one person…one family…at a time.
Journey to Housing Stability for Chronically Homeless People
For individuals that have had a long history of homelessness there is a psychological adaptation that occurs. The experience of being homeless and spending most days trying to meet basic needs becomes normal as a survival mechanism. The individual’s social network – if there is one – tends to be comprised mainly of others that have experienced homelessness for long periods of time. All of this is are common – if not expected – adaptations to combat the stressors of long-term homelessness. It helps ensure survival.
In many communities, the long-term homeless population is not one that is underserved. Because of the survival mentality, these individuals have learned how to use the system of services to survive. As a result, they can, in some many instances, be over-served. But none of the services may be adequately focused on ending their homelessness. The services are focused primarily on keeping people alive for another day. Keeping people alive through these services such as shelter, drop-ins, meal programs and the like certainly have benefits (I am definitely not advocating that we do nothing and let people die) but the proliferation of the services and long-term use of them can create a dependency. The very things that are keeping people alive may have the unintended consequence of propelling the psychological transformation further to the point where recipients of the services become desensitized to the true function of the services (to meet short-term immediate needs).
Below I outline the four steps in the Journey to Housing Stability. There will always be exceptions in any typology of this nature, and people need to accept that at the outset. However, based upon review of hundreds of case plans and case notes of chronically homeless people, interviews with a range of service providers and Team Leaders, extensive interviews with persons who have experienced long-term homelessness, an examination of grey and academic literature, and my own experience as a service provider, I think these four steps are rather accurate. If nothing else, they provide a helpful language for discussion amongst frontline staff in working with chronically homeless people.
The first step in the Journey to Housing Stability is Dependent & Unaware. The dependency comes from years of relying on the human services delivery system to meet basic needs. Chronically homeless people (who incidentally also have a history that often includes time spent in other institutional or quasi-institutional environments where needs are met in a similar way) are dependent on others for meals, shelter, access to food, access to health care, etc. Because the experience of homelessness for this group becomes normalized over time, people lose their sense of awareness of the dependency. This is a group of individuals that can be a voracious consumer of resources. While the concept of housing can be quite appealing to this group, the act of being housed is, in fact, abnormal. Increasing awareness about the use of resources (especially in the context of being housed) is critically important for the support worker. Because of the lack of awareness, it is quite common for this group of individuals to make a series of “demands” in the early stages of being housed, even when these demands are couched in language of gratitude or thankfulness. The degree to which they may have become dependent on others to meet daily subsistence needs is something that they are not fully – or at all – aware of. What is being offered by the support worker may be perceived as simply another resource to be consumed.
The second step in the Journey to Housing Stability for previously chronically homeless persons is Dependent & Aware. It is my contention that real goal setting and individualized service planning can really only begin once an awareness of the use of resources is established (or is in the process of being established). Because goals have actions that often require other resources, this is the perfect opportunity to increase that awareness. This group is very likely to be focused on the “why” question. By that I mean there is a sense of inquisitiveness to truly figure out how all of the pieces of the puzzle come together for longer-term housing stability. People become aware not only of what they need to survive on a day to day basis, but what they need to have greater life stability…a “future-based” orientation that extends beyond just living for today. I have found that to provide the best assistance for people who are increasing the awareness of their dependency on a range of other resources is to focus on small wins and SMART goal setting (specific, measureable, attainable, realistic and timed). We want to support people in a transition towards improved awareness.
The third step in the Journey to Housing Stability for previously chronically homeless persons is Independent & Aware. This step is characterized by individuals that can establish their own goals and action plans, without the assistance of a support worker helping them with a framework for doing so, or with the support worker being the one to bring the resources to the table for them to consider or access. This transformation happens when people begin to make the transition from a normative stage of their growth to an integrative stage of growth. It has been my experience that individuals that have achieved independence and are aware of the actions and resources they need, may think they are in a position to no longer require supports of any nature from their support worker. Many support workers erroneously back away when this is the case. But if that happens, the final step of the Journey to Housing Stability may be missed – Interdependent & Aware.
This fourth step – Interdependent & Aware – is one of the cornerstones of healthy community living, as much of the literature on community planning can attest to. It is my contention that society works better when people do not live solely in independent isolation, but when we intentionally try to build community…when we nourish appropriate collectivism designed not to strip away personal identity, but to help people position their independent strengths and attributes into a context where they have meaningful connections with others. Part of our job in providing supports to previously chronically homeless persons isn’t just about getting them housing or helping them address the likes of health, mental health or addiction issues – it is about helping people create, recreate, develop and/or nourish social relationships and networks where they have a social safety net comprised first of friends and family before reliance on human services organizations.
Universally, for each person that we serve, achieving housing stability is a journey. Each “journey” has stops along the way; discernible milestones in the trip. The more that we appreciate that the approach we take towards assisting people is incremental and process driven when it comes to informing how we support people, the better off both clients and support workers will be.
The four steps of the “Journey to Housing Stability” are part of OrgCode’s day long workshop on successful Rapid Re-housing & Housing First programs. For more in-depth information on the four steps or the workshop, please drop us a line.