Back to Basics – What Exactly is Housing First & Rapid Re-Housing?

A lot of the time I find “Housing First” and “Rapid Re-Housing” to be misused terms. Below I briefly outline the definitions and service components to each. When asked to assist organizations or communities realign their service delivery to be more effective or to evaluate their housing programs, this is the understanding of Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing that I try to generate awareness of in the community. As this is a blog and not a two or three day training seminar, I am focusing on hitting the high points. (Maybe some day I will find a publisher that will take me on to write the more exhaustive description, program examples, etc – but I digress.)

As a philosophy housing first (intentionally a lower case “h” and lower case “f”) focuses on any attempt to help people who have experienced homelessness to access housing before providing assistance and support with any other life issues. In this orientation, the intervention of Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing both fit. Given housing is the only known cure to homelessness, the success comes with helping ideal candidates achieve the cure sooner rather than later.

As an intervention Housing First is a specific type of service delivery. Delivered through Intensive Case Management or Assertive Community Treatment, fidelity to the core aspects of the service can be measured. Housing First is specifically not a “first come, first served” intervention. It intentionally seeks out chronically homeless individuals that have complex, and most often co-occurring issues, and serves those with the highest acuity first. The individual (family) served through Housing First is homeless and has most often been homeless for quite some time, usually as a result of these issues and the failure of the human and health service delivery spectrum to address these issues in order to solve the person’s homelessness.

Participation in Housing First is voluntary – people cannot be forced or coerced to participate in a Housing First intervention. Individuals who consent to receive a Housing First intervention are provided assistance with accessing housing of their choosing (subject to affordability, action-ability and appropriateness) and supports for at least 12-18 months in an ICM approach (subject to the ability to integrate clients with longer-term community supports) and longer in an ACT approach.

There is no expectation of sobriety, treatment, compliance or mandated service pathways. Service participants do not need to participate in psychiatric services if they do not want to; they do not need to participate in things like anger management classes if they don’t want to; they do not need to attend life skills classes if they do not want to; they do not need to attend parenting classes if they do not want to; they do not need to address their physical health issues if they do not want to – and I could go on. The only real expectations of Housing First, which the individual agrees to prior to starting with the program, is to agree to have their support workers visit them in their home – usually multiple times per week in the early days of program participation, to pay their rent on time and in full (or agree to third party payment of their rent), and to work hard to avoid disrupting the reasonable enjoyment of other tenants in the same building that would cause their eviction.

There are many “tricks of the trade” that help folks in achieving residential stability in Housing First. For one, caseloads are kept at a reasonable size, with an emphasis on Housing First as a quality intervention, not a quantity intervention. In ICM service delivery – which is my primary area of specialization – one case manager works with 15-20 clients depending on where the clients are at in their journey to stability and level of complexity. Another “trick of the trade” is working with the client to develop a personal guest policy, where the client themselves determine when they think it is a good idea to have guests over, how many guests they think it is reasonable to have over at any one time, the types of activities they think are appropriate to engage in within their apartment, and what they think is appropriate should they find their actions in conflict with their guest policy. Yet another “trick of the trade” is to infuse the “responsible tenant” discussion into conversation with the client at least three times in the early stages of the program whereby the client themselves articulates what they think it means to be a responsible tenant.

Services in Housing First are offered through a harm reduction philosophy, in a non-judgmental manner and from a client-centered position. Supports are provided in vivo, and there is an expectation that individuals served through the intervention will access a broader range of community resources, have meaningful daily activities, and work towards greater independence and improved life satisfaction. The support worker in Housing First can expect to model and teach skills and behavior in the client’s apartment and in the community. It is not uncommon for the support worker to have one-on-one time with the client to teach things like cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, and the like. It is not uncommon for the support worker to accompany the client to appointments in the community like working with welfare, shopping, doctor appointments, etc.

There is intentional case planning that occurs in Housing First. The first focus of the case planning is on housing stability…primarily paying attention to meeting basic needs, understanding how relationships can impact tenancy, ensuring that the individual feels safe in their apartment, and understanding the supports available to help them maintain housing. Momentum gained in these areas translates into the development of an Individualized Service Plan where specific goals are identified and an action plan is put in place for each of them. Through this service plan, the emphasis is on greater life stability overall.

Housing First is not a “first come, first served” approach to service delivery. Regardless of whether the Housing First supports are provided through Intensive Case Management or Assertive Community Treatment, access should be coordinated on a system-wide basis. With Housing First, supports are de-linked from staying housed, and as such if an individual loses their housing they do not lose their supports and will be re-housed as many times as necessary until the person achieves housing stability. There are no limits on the number of times that a person can be re-housed. Re-housing is not seen as a failure. It is seen as an opportunity to learn, adapt, grow and try again.

Service participants supported through Housing First often have a history of considerable interaction with health, mental health, addiction, police, criminal justice, ambulances – and other types of emergency services and institutions. Through the housing and support work, most often one will see a decrease in this degree of interaction with emergency services, and a more deliberate and strategic engagement with more appropriate services. It is still possible that Housing First program participants end up in hospital or accessing treatment services, but the supports remain active during these periods of time, with assistance provided in discharge planning as much as possible, and active support in the implementation of treatment protocols as much as possible.

Housing First relies on a number of proven practices and evidence-informed service delivery. Examples of the types of professional skills a Housing First practitioner is likely going to have mastery of include: Motivational Interviewing; Assertive Engagement; Wellness Recovery Action Plans; Illness Management Recovery; Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment; Trauma Informed Service Delivery; Harm Reduction Practices; Crisis Planning; Supported Employment; etc.

While Housing First is most frequently delivered through scattered site housing units integrated within “regular” apartment buildings throughout a city, it is possible to have congregate Permanent Supportive Housing that practices Housing First. But, there really is no such thing as “Housing First Housing”. When I hear that, and break it down with people, most often what they really are trying to say is a low-barrier congregate PSH environment that practices all the aspects of a Housing First intervention.

The place a participant lives in Housing First must be permanent housing, where “permanent” means that if they follow the lease, pay rent and don’t disrupt the reasonable enjoyment of others they have the same security of tenure as any other renter. The lease is “standard” – meaning it contains no language or stipulations different than any other renter. This does not preclude the use of Master Leasing or Head Leasing where an organization leases the apartment unit and legally sub-leases to a program participant, with an understanding that there can be no impediments to the program participant taking on the lease in full in the future.

When asked to set up an evaluation framework for Housing First, it is my contention that 80% or more of the individuals served should remain housed long term. I also tend to look at reductions in use of emergency services and engagement with the criminal justice system. Then, I focus my attention on how the acuity of the individual decreases overtime, as well as changes in quality of life as a result of the intervention.

Rapid Re-Housing is a support intervention intended to serve longer-term episodically homeless people with mid-range acuity; these clients typically have co-occurring issues that are at the core of their frequent returns to homelessness and/or long-standing patterns of precarious housing. The individual or family is homeless and usually has two or three life areas where assistance in accessing community-based resources should improve their life and housing stability on a go-forward basis. Usually recipients of Rapid Re-Housing are aware of a range of community supports; they simply have not been meaningfully and sustainably connected with those resources.

One of the first mistakes in how people talk about Rapid Re-Housing is that they refer to it as “Housing First Light”. It is not. It is a different type of intervention that happens to have a lot of similarities to Housing First. Secondly, some organizations and communities erroneously lump any program that assists with rapid access to housing as being Rapid Re-Housing. This, as well, is false. There can be some awesome approaches to helping people access housing quickly, which are not Rapid Re-Housing.

With mid-range acuity at time of program entry, Rapid Re-Housing recipients usually receive supports for a minimum of six months, with possibility of renewal of service in three month increments based upon traction in sustainably meeting needs that will enhance housing and life stability (and should there be persistent barriers to improved stability, the client may be more accurately considered a Housing First client).

The supports delivered in Rapid Re-Housing are typically case management supports, but are neither Intensive Case Management nor Assertive Community Treatment – though there are typically time periods of support that are more intensive than others. Supports are delivered in community. There is an expectation that the individual (family) will be supported in accessing community resources, have meaningful daily activities, and work towards greater independence and improved life satisfaction. There will be teaching and modeling in Rapid Re-Housing, like Housing First, but the intensity of this and the duration of it is quite often (though not always) less than what one would experience in Housing First.

Importantly, Rapid Re-Housing is more than a financial assistance program; it comes with the expectation that the client will engage with support services. However, the support services have no expectation of engagement in treatment, compliance or mandated service pathways. Like Housing First, Rapid Re-Housing is offered through a harm reduction philosophy, in a non-judgmental fashion and from a client-centered position.

Rapid Re-Housing is almost exclusively delivered through scattered site apartments. Participants sign a standard tenancy agreement. Nowhere in the lease does it stipulate that an individual has to participate in programming or will be evicted. For all intents and purposes, the housing is permanent. So long as the individual follows the lease and pays their rent they have the same security of tenure as any other renter.

Rapid Re-Housing also features structured case planning with goal identification and an action plan put into place to assist with reaching these goals. Compared to Housing First, Rapid Re-Housing clients are usually more able to engage in the process of goal identification and attainment quicker given their acuity is not as high and their time spent homeless has not been chronic.

It is best if people gain access to Rapid Re-Housing through a coordinated access function within a community. This will ensure the best fit of mid-range acuity clients to the appropriate intervention. It should weed out those clients that would be better served through a more intensive and longer-term intervention like Housing First. It should also week out those individuals and families that ultimately can resolve their own homelessness without case management supports of any kind (which make up the majority of people in any community).

When I set up evaluation frameworks for Rapid Re-Housing, I tend to look for a housing stability rate in the 90% range. Like Housing First, I also want to focus some attention on decreasing acuity over time and improved quality of life as a result of the intervention.

There are certain things that Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing both are not. First of all, Housing First is NOT “housing only”. I would posit that in most instances getting people housed is relatively easy compared to the hard work of supporting them to stay housed. Neither Housing First nor Rapid Re-Housing are a fad. They each are proven to be successful when practiced in a certain manner with a specific client group. There is no such thing as a “sober” or “dry” Housing First or Rapid Re-Housing program. Participants may choose to abstain, but abstinence cannot be a pre-requisite for program participation. There is no such thing as a transitional housing program that is Housing First or Rapid Re-Housing because one of the core elements of both interventions is that the housing that people secure is permanent. Neither Housing First nor Rapid Re-Housing are the only forms of effective housing interventions. There are plenty of good approaches to helping homeless individuals and families access housing that I have seen in my travels that seem to demonstrate positive outputs. Organizations and communities should feel compelled to call these programs something that they are not. Neither Housing First nor Rapid Re-Housing “fix” or “heal” people. The job in Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing is to support the individual access and maintain housing regardless of their history or life issues. Both acknowledge that people may still have active addictions, compromised mental wellness, difficulties budgeting, issues with impulse control, problematic social behaviours, physical ailments, etc. – yet people with these or any other life issues can have the issues and have a life without any future homelessness.

About a third of Iain’s time is spent initiating, redesigning, evaluating or training people on Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing and how to align an effective homeless and housing service delivery system to leverage the strengths of the intervention. If you want more info on what this entails, drop him a note at idejong@orgcode.com

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.