15 Things We Should All Want for 2015
It has become an annual tradition that I kick off each year with a blog for the year ahead. In keeping with that tradition, here’s what we should all want (demand?) for 2015:
1. Giant leaps forward.
Audacious stretch goals move us from the inertia of the status quo to a new (uncomfortable) place of the unfamiliar but awesome. Let’s make 2015 the year of everyone taking one giant leap forward out of her/his comfort zone – whether that is a conscious individual choice or as part of a broader movement (Zero 2016 in the US, 20,000 Homes in Canada, etc.)
2. Less band-aids and more solutions.
Let’s rally together every well-intentioned college class, church group and service club and get them to stop handing out sandwiches, coffee and blankets and devote the same energy to building housing and advocating for policy changes that would increase benefit levels and promote sustainable food security.
3. Imperfect action.
Less talk, more rock. Imperfect action trumps perfect planning. Get out there and do something different. Do it remarkably imperfectly. Learn. Adjust. Grow. Repeat.
4. A few more housing discussions.
I want a few more discussions about ending homelessness to be accompanied by the “and this is how we are going to increase housing options” discussion. There are more than just chronically homeless people that need housing. Trickle down economics are remarkably ineffective when it comes to housing.
5. An end to mythology.
Stories are seared into the consciousness of the masses. We tell stories about homelessness. We recount stories of how homeless persons became housed persons. But we need to start using data and evidence more and individual stories as pillars of success less. We need to tell the truth of what usually happens, not shine a spotlight on the anomaly that simply tells people the story we want to tell rather than the overall truth.
6. Fewer nice but stupid people.
Let’s take the goodwill of people with time and compassion and educate them so that they make positive, enduring impacts on the lives of homeless persons – not just perpetuating a cycle of well-intentioned, but ineffective energy. Charity will not sustain us nor will it end a complex social issue – it can’t.
7. Greater investment in professionalizing services.
I want a few more communities to grow a set and divert money away from direct service and put it into professionalizing its frontline staff. You can talk a good game about ending homelessness all you want. If you don’t teach people how to do it, it is wasted air. And wasted effort.
8. More organizations in communities working together instead of tearing each other apart.
Give me alliances for collective action that commit to work together to achieve a new reality. And for those who refuse to come along – paraphrasing the immortal words from Frozen – let them go. No point keeping around a “partner” just to spar with them.
9. An understanding of the difference between acuity and being chronically homeless.
Most definitions of chronic homelessness miss the point of acuity. Let us look at the depth and complexity of needs as it relates to housing stability. Let us stop looking solely at length of time homeless and presence of disabling condition, which could be an indication of nothing more than an ineffective service delivery system or woefully out of date programs and approaches that incentivize homelessness.
10. Stop clinging to the past.
Unless someone has invented a time machine that the rest of us don’t know about, we would be well served to leave the past in the past. We can learn from the past. We cannot yearn for the past.
11. An end to investment in stuff that doesn’t work.
When demand exceeds supply of supports and housing can I look any homeless person in the eye and say, “I cannot serve you because our community is giving money to another program that doesn’t work.” Probably not. If your community does not collectively put a stop to investing in stuff that doesn’t work you are essentially condoning the deaths of homeless people.
12. Leadership skill development.
We need to build leaders. I wish I could convene 75-100 of the most emerging leaders on homelessness and housing together for three days and rock their universe with knowledge, strategies, techniques and supports unlike what they will experience at any other time in their life. Then send them back to their communities to pollinate the bloom of other blossoming leaders.
13. Better knowledge on how people do after they are housed.
Take the guesswork out of it. Start reporting on outcomes (what happens after people are housed) and less on outputs (how many people are housed). If you don’t have a quality of life self-report tool we can give you one. If your assessment tool doesn’t have this capability, start using the SPDAT.
14. A grown-up conversation about taxes.
Maybe this will be the year people realize you cannot get better services while paying less taxes. I want to pay more taxes if it means more housing and less homelessness. The wealth exists around us to fund the solution to most social problems if we tax for it. Instead, we will have less than we need and rely on individual donors and corporate philanthropy.
15. Less unnecessary competition.
The best service providers should be rewarded with funds. The best communities should be rewarded with funds. And I appreciate the only way to determine what is “best” is through competition. But it seems that almost everything has become a competition from who can end veteran’s homelessness first (I have met many veteran’s still homeless in Phoenix by the way) to which communities can do the best application for more supports. Maybe it is time for more cooperation and less competition if we want to bring all performers to a new standard.
10 Things I Learned this Year: Part Two
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Last week, the blog looked at the first five things I learned this year. If you want to, you can get caught up by reading that blog first. Or you can just launch into items 6 through 10 of the 10 things I learned this year.
6. Some communities get so much technical assistance that it smothers and cripples them.
As the good folks at despair.com (they create de-motivational posters) suggest, there can be great money to be made in prolonging a problem. In my opinion, technical assistance is a resource that should not be squandered, but there are some communities deemed to be such high need that they get overwhelmed with technical assistance and no strategic support to hold it together in a way that makes any sense. The problem in those instances isn’t an absence of support. It is an absence of thoughtful, sequenced, strategic, targeted supports. And we also have to be careful that some TA is not creeping into other program areas that are outside the mandate. It is not the responsibility of the TA to resolve this; it is the responsibility of those that pay for the TA to get their act together.
7. Some of the most innovative and effective things are happening in places that are not in the national/international spotlight.
Medicine Hat has the best assessor on the planet in Jeff Standell. Ever heard of him or Medicine Hat? You should. I learn something from him every time we talk. Ever heard of Karen Santilli, Michelle Wilcox, Ann Nolan, John MacDonald, Cicely Dove, Jennifer Schnack-Bolwell? They are my Change-Champions of the year, proving that a senior management team can hold together to make significant changes to service delivery because they know there are better ways of doing things. Hats off to Crossroads Rhode Island in Providence. Got a conference coming up where you want to talk about effective change process in a multi-service organization so that you can end homelessness? Talk to these folks. Oceana’s Home Partnership in Michigan was a relatively early adopter of the SPDAT. Their data speaks volumes when you move from talking about which person is eligible for a program to who is most in need of a program. And they prove that rural areas can kick butt at service delivery and have larger urban centers look to them. Reach out to Kittie Tuinstra and have a chat with her. What about The Link in Minneapolis? They put in place service prioritization and improved service planning for youth before coordinated access and common assessment for youth programs started getting on the radar. And they have improved their case management outcomes as a result. I tip my hat to Erin Wixsten and you should get in touch with her if you want to learn more. Then there’s Partners Ending Homelessness in Guilford County, North Carolina that has proven private foundation can be used effectively to create system change. Beyond bricks and mortar, they are showing that it is possible to get a significant private funder behind change in service delivery. Darryl Kosciak is the ED of PEH and worthy chatting to when it comes to understanding why and how he helped make this happen. We never hear enough from places like West Virginia that strategically go about tackling tough issues on a statewide basis to help get CoCs from across a state going in the same direction. Zach Brown inspires me because he has proven to me that action is better than perfection when it comes to real leadership. Want to get fired up about an open HMIS or common assessment across communities or full implementation of SOAR or comparable initiatives? Talk to Zach. Got an integrated housing and homelessness plan? I wish more communities did so. You can talk all you want about ending homelessness, but the real proof of strategic, forward planning is integrating your affordable housing needs with the discussion on homelessness. Here’s to the County of Simcoe, City of Kingston & County of Frontenac, Chatham-Kent, Huron County, Stratford & St. Marys and the other fine communities we have worked with this year to help make that happen. And there are others. Point is, not all the communities you hear of most frequently on the national scene represent the whole story of cool things happening that I wish others could learn about.
8. More people read the blog than I thought.
This little blog gets more attention than I thought it would when I started it. By almost a four to one margin over the next most popular blog, the most viewed blog of the year was Geez, Don’t Let a Few Little Facts Get in the Way of Your Perceptions of People on Welfare. Next in line was 2013: The Year to Stop Doing Certain Things in Order to Strengthen the Resolve to Ending Homelessness. I find it a bit surprising that a relatively recently published blog, Justice, Not Charity, took in the third place spot. More so this year, I have learned that the blog results in a fair amount of two-way communication. I love it when I get questions or comments about things in the blog. I like it when people leave a reply at the bottom of a blog, so long as it isn’t abusive or an attack on anyone. High five to each person that has asked me a question that resulted in a blog this year or provided a blog idea. In my travels I have learned that people use my blog in training, public education, discussion topics and even college courses. I have heard elected officials quote it to each other at a County Council. I have had questions at plenary sessions asked related to blog content. It is all kinds of awesome. I am honoured and flattered, and I will keep it going. Every time someone comments on the FaceBook page about it or Shares it or re-tweets it, I smile. Thanks for the conversation.
9. We can agree to disagree on some things, but on other things you are just dead wrong. And I need you to know that.
I learned this year that being polite for the sake of being polite doesn’t seem to serve homeless people very well. I always kind of knew this intuitively, but this year more than others I have seen initiatives stalled or completely ended because of an overwhelming desire to placate organizations that serve homeless people rather than trying to, you know, put recipients of services first. I am all about civility. I am a fan of debate and discourse. But when there is a dispute of facts I have learned that I can no longer just agree to disagree with the person in opposition. If I truly believe in justice (which I do) I am compelled to speak and name it.
10.The privilege of doing this for a living is not lost on me.
I will never get rich doing this work – and likely neither will you. I do what I do because I love doing it. I feel like I make a difference at least half the time. This certainly doesn’t mean everyone likes my delivery style or even me for that matter. Some of my favourite examples from this year:
In Arizona in late summer, a guy told me I should take a course on public speaking so that I could become good at it. He suggested Toastmasters. Apparently with enough practice I could also learn to write jokes that were actually funny.
In North Dakota a woman told me that her pastor told her that I would probably want to apologize to her and everyone else at the conference for saying provocative things. I apologized to her that her pastor misled or lied to her.
In Michigan I was told that just because something is a fact doesn’t mean it is correct (which still baffles me a bit), and that I should stop using facts when I speak because it overwhelms people.
I got a phone call from someone that had met me at a focus group in Ontario to tell me my face is hard to look at. “It has an odd shape,” she said, “and no real symmetry to speak of…at least not in a way that would capture one’s attention.” She went on tell me, “shaving that grotesque patch of whiskers off your chin may be a good start.”
These anecdotes aside, I feed off the energy in communities that I visit where people are dedicated to being awesome. That is very uplifting. And when I see things that work I have the great fortune of connecting people from across the globe when they have similar issues or a solution that will work for their local situation. Thanks for reading the blog. Thanks for hanging out with me or hosting me in your community. Thanks for making a difference. The blog will be back in early 2014. Be awesome! [serialposts]
10 Things I Learned this Year: Part One
I get around – in a good way. There were only two 7-day consecutive stretches since 2013 started that I was home. In every other week I was somewhere else one or more days, and when you add it all up, I will spend about 300 days on the road this year unless something changes between writing this blog and December 31.
In response to the most frequently asked questions I get about all of my travel:
Yes, I have super duper airmile-frequent-flyer-point status.
No, I don’t hate travelling, but every airport, restaurant and hotel starts to look the same after a while – with a few exceptions.
Of all the places I have been, I love where you live best.
I parent through FaceTime.
I travel as much as I do because I feel passionate about what I do.
But that isn’t what this blog is about.
This blog is the 10 Things That I Learned This Year. More than a lot of people that may just see the perspective of their own community or may talk to some folks in other communities and go to the occasional conference, I really do get here, there and everywhere across Canada, the United States and even Australia this year. Maybe what I see will be of value to you as you plan ahead in 2014.
This blog looks at the first five items in the list. Come back next week to read the final five!
1. Ending homelessness is like teenage sex. Everyone talks about it. No one really knows how to do it. Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.
No organization or community has this thing totally figured out. When people ask me “Where should I go to see it really working?” I don’t have an answer. I can point to dozens of amazing things that are happening in many different cities and counties and provinces/states, but no one place has put the full package together. I think this has happened in large part because:
we have pumped up the rhetoric of ending homelessness without communities taking the time to actually articulate what it means to “end homelessness”;
we have created an environment where organizations and communities that are amazingly non-judgmental with the people they serve are overwhelmingly judgmental with each other;
like teenage sex, if you bring in an experienced person to show the ropes and lessons learned from other places, they get labeled and shamed rather than accepted and learned from;
too many communities have never updated their plan to end homelessness to incorporate lessons learned and new strategies, and are clinging to a road map that is dangerously out of touch with the new reality so much so that the Plan has become irrelevant;
a lot of the forums where people get together are about sharing information, not about teaching people how to end homelessness. Frankly, I have been to more conferences about homelessness than most people and a lot of them do not provide substance that help people leave and put practices into their operations that will make a difference;
most places think they are so different from other places that proven practices elsewhere are somehow not going to be applicable to them (HINT: housing ends homelessness)
2. People want change. They just want someone else to change.
I find there is a strong appetite for change and making program improvements. What I have seen a lot of, though, is organizations or senior managers of organizations waiting for someone else to change first. Leadership can mean making the necessary leap into the dark and act without the benefit of having experience.
And while change seems to (finally) be seen as inevitable, never underestimate an organization’s desire for self-preservation. Funding going down has been written on the wall just about everywhere this year. Instead of digging deep to have the internal conversation about making sure the programs being offered are the best to be offered across the community from the end users perspective, what I have seen time and again is agency posturing and preparation to keep on doing what they have always done, effectiveness be damned.
3. It ain’t a competition to see who ends homelessness first.
While competition may get people initially motivated, what I am increasingly seeing is people turned off by competition. Getting to zero chronically homeless people first in your community actually means nothing. Honest. And if we keep that mentality I can assure you there are not a bunch of communities saying “We’re number two! We’re number two!” They stop or they don’t care or there is no timeline at all.
The factors in each community (availability of vouchers, availability of housing stock, funding, experience and expertise of service providers, government context, leadership, etc.) are SO diverse that unless you factored each one into the equation competing in the first place is pointless.
What we need is a common, structured narrative that keeps us collectively focused around the world on effective strategies that are proven to ending homelessness. We need to get into a mindset of sharing this information willingly. It doesn’t matter who is first – it matters more who is last and how long it takes to collectively get there.
4. We need to focus more on keeping people housed and changing people’s lives, not just getting them housed.
I have learned that too many communities are focused on getting people housed quickly and burning up a lot of resources to do so without investing in the back-end to actually keep people housed. It is very limiting to set into motion a local race to get people housed quickly if: a) you aren’t housing the people that most need it; and, b) there are not the supports necessary to keep people housed.
The measure of success is NOT how many people you house. It is how many people stay housed and have her/his life changed positively through the experience. Ours is NOT a quantity industry; it is a quality industry.
Let us be clear: getting people housed is an output; keeping people housed is an outcome.
And for everyone that is interested in the cost saving part of ending homelessness, it comes from keeping people housed and away from those more costly services on an ONGOING basis. We are not talking about temporary reprieves in service use patterns. We are talking about everlasting CHANGE.
Most often because we are talking about working with a population with complex and co-occurring needs, this means working with a small group intensely, not a large group peripherally.
5. Assessments work…when they are grounded in evidence.
It is entirely possible to structure your service community around a common assessment. I have seen that happen many times this year, and I have seen incredible changes in service delivery when that happens. I have seen communities start to use the data from the assessments to change conversations around service planning and investments in service delivery.
And I have also seen communities that insist on using a tool they made up that has no evidence base to support it. A couple communities that come to mind are ones that brag about being close to ending homelessness. But let’s be clear: while they may be about to house all the people that meet a federal definition of chronic homelessness, that does not mean – or come close to meaning – that all people with acute needs have been housed in their community. Nor does it mean that the people most in need of support and housing resources are in their support and housing programs.
This year has taught me, through data collected in assessments, that many of the most acute homeless people in communities do NOT meet a federal criteria for chronic homelessness.
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Illegitimi Non Carborundum
Maybe you have no clue what that means. It is a mock-Latin aphorism that means, “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
Almost 10 years ago, in the thick of a rather large change initiative I felt like I was swimming naked in a shark infested pool after being lathered in pig blood. (There’s an image for ya!) The point being, everywhere I turned I felt I was under attack on some level.
Sometimes the attacks were about the credibility of the approach. Other times, it was about the soundness or applicability or relevance of the research. Then there were ethical debates (as if somehow housing homeless people is unethical). Then there were the critiques of process. Oh, and concerns about communication strategy. And for good measure there were some personal attacks too.
I am open to criticism and feedback and suggestions on alternate approaches to doing things…when they are credible. What I quickly came to learn is that the attacks had more to do with a resistance to change than anything else.
One of the most talented people I have ever worked with, Toby, had a way of helping me get perspective when all of this was going on. He introduced me to “illegitimi non carborundum”. And I have never looked back. It is, perhaps, the best advice I have ever received in how to manage complex change processes.
If there are multiple lines of attack deploying various methods, I have seen over and over again that a change process can get scuttled. I have seen it when communities try to change their shelter system to be more housing based. I have seen it when there are approaches to changing funding to focus on interventions that work. I have seen it when Boards have been going through renewal processes. I have seen it when communities try to implement common assessment and coordinated access. I have seen it when it is suggested that prioritization occur to focus on those with deeper needs.
I have seen great leaders brought to ruin because the bastards were able to grind them down.
I think part of successful change is attitude. Well equipped with data and information provides the change leader confidence. A well-developed work plan that has transparent objectives and accountability measures built in goes a long way. Clear communication without side bar or backdoor conversations that interfere with the broader message is critical.
But above all else the change leader (or those closest to them) needs to say “illegitimi non carborundum”. Rise above the crap. Wear them out. Grind them down. Get to the place where the change can really matter.
Priority Lists, Not Waiting Lists
Let us put an end to waiting lists for housing (or – gulp – shelter for that matter).
Let us replace those lists with priority lists.
Waiting lists, with some exceptions, are not designed to serve those with the deepest needs. They are designed to serve those that have waited the longest. But here’s the thing – if I have really deep needs it is entirely possible that I will die before my time comes up on a waiting list.
Imagine if emergency rooms took the waiting list mentality. Last night, Sally stubbed her toe. She goes to the ER and is told by triage that there is nothing they really do for a stubbed toe and that she should go home. Sally insists on waiting. This morning, around 6am, Bernie sliced his finger while making breakfast. He goes to the ER. Triage tells him they aren’t sure if he is going to need stitches or not. They bandage him up. They tell him to take a seat until a doctor becomes available. They tell him that if anything changes or gets worse, to come back to the triage window. Fred had a heart attack at 9am.
Sally is still waiting.
Bernie is still waiting.
Who gets served next?
Fred.
But why? Haven’t Sally and Bernie been waiting longer? Yes they have. But Fred’s needs are more acute than Sally and Bernie. If you don’t serve Fred right away he may die. Bernie can wait a little bit. Sally, well, she may want to be served and be willing to wait all day, but she doesn’t really need the ER services.
In just about every scenario, a reasonable person would expect the person with the most urgent needs to be served next. Except that isn’t how we tend to operate affordable housing, supportive housing, or intensive support programs. Even when there is modified chronological access (a fancy term for being able to jump the queue a little bit), it is rarely based upon acuity in its totality, but rather preference for a priority population that may not be grounded in evidence.
In an era of better assessments of client needs and coordinated access, I want you to rip apart your waiting lists. Delete them from your computer. Replace them with a priority list. Triage access to housing based upon who has the highest priority for that housing and the supports that come with it. Don’t manage access by who has waited the longest. That has nothing to do with who needs it the most.
Justice, Not Charity
Homelessness will not be ended with charity. Charity, throughout human history, has never solved a social issue. It never will.
Charity is terrific at meeting immediate needs. Charity can feed you. Charity can clothe you. Charity can even shelter you. But it will not solve the issue that led you to being hungry, naked or without a roof over your head. There will always be a time and place for charity; but we cannot be fooled into thinking that charity was ever designed nor intended to be the same thing as justice.
Ending homelessness is a matter of justice. Justice is thoughtful, deliberate and iterative. It is intended to bring about change that allows for opportunity. It is not synonymous with equality, though equality may be an element of justice depending on the issue.
Justice is blind to a deserving and undeserving poor. As a matter of justice there is inclusion. People do not have to demonstrate their worthiness for housing. In justice there is a fundamental belief that all people are worthy of being housed.
This does not mean that housing comes without price, nor does it mean that housing comes without expectations of behavior. A just price for housing is what one can afford relative to her/his means. It doesn’t mean free, unless the person has nothing. A just approach to behavior sets expectations relative to what is possible for the individual. A just approach does not have expectations that exceed the capabilities of the person. And within the acceptable expectations, there are consequences. A just approach to housing is not “anything goes”.
A just approach to housing deliberately seeks to serve those most disadvantaged for they are the most in need of assistance. A charitable approach is more inclined to rely on first come, first served. A just approach will use a number of variables to assess opportunities for assistance. A charitable approach is more inclined to focus on what feels right rather than what can be proven. A just approach will promote greater independence and interdependence with a broader community. Charitable acts are dependent upon people requiring charity and are more narrowly focused (in most instances) on the relationship between the charity provider and the charity recipient.
Justice embraces the fullness of human potential. It is not socialism. In fact, it is about the protection of capitalism based upon basic human rights. Social inclusion, as an element of justice, sees opportunity for participation in the labor force as an appropriate pursuit relative to each person’s potential, respecting that even people with disabilities (seen and unseen; physical, cognitive and otherwise) should have the opportunity to participate as they are able. And a justice lens appreciates that the opportunity for full inclusion in the workforce is enhanced first with the opportunity to have stable, affordable, secure, safe housing.
With justice, people are supported in housing until such time as they have mastery of the skills necessary for the most possible independence relative to her/his capabilities. With charity, people have their housing needs met without expectation of skill development. Justice promotes personal responsibility and pride. Charity promotes gratitude to the giver.
Charity requests (demands?) that philanthropy and government provide grants that make assistance possible. Justice requests (demands?) investment to impact social change and spends on those aspects that are most likely to result in lasting change. In a charitable model the same types of services, often to the same organizations, is quite probable year after year with little variation. In a justice model, needs assessments are conducted with regularity, and the investment strategy follows the needs as identified through evidence. Charity believes there are problems that can be improved upon with financial and human resources. Justice proves there are problems that can be improved upon with financial and human resources.
Justice demands that the most qualified, trained people are involved in the provision of services, as those most in need are deserving of the most qualified persons to assist them. A charitable model fills gaps with well-intentioned, warm bodies that are fantastic at meeting immediate needs. But charitable persons may come from a broad range of careers and life experiences and are donating their time. This is commendable and will keep (most) people alive for another day. But it will not stem the tide and end homelessness.
To end homelessness, therefore, we need to believe and promote an agenda that is firmly anchored in doing so because ending homelessness is the just thing to do. If ending homelessness is framed as something that is solely an act of charity the day to day needs of homeless people will be met, but the problem will never be solved…and in fact is likely to expand as demands outstrip charitable resources.