WASHINGTON, DC. More than 200 state and local jurisdictional leaders, their representatives, and other community leaders engaged in 10-Year Plan efforts gathered in Washington, DC at the National Press Club last week for the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) second national summit for jurisdictional leaders. This year’s event, The Pursuit of Solutions: Second Annual National Summit on Innovation for Jurisdictional Leaders, included special presentations by Louise Casey, architect of England’s successful “rough sleepers” initiative that has successfully reduced street homelessness by more than two-thirds, and Pursuit of Happyness author Chris Gardner, talking about his “myth-defying” time of homelessness depicted in the hit motion picture of the same name starring Will Smith. Through inspiring Results Reports by cities of decreases in street and chronic homelessness being achieved through 10-Year Plan implementation, and peer to peer dialogues and interactive sessions on the Pursuit of Housing, Resources, Media, Research, and Partnerships, innovative ideas and initiatives producing results were identified for replication.

In his opening remarks, USICH Director Mangano described the Summit’s purpose and expectations,

“Thank you for being here. I am proud of the results we are seeing across the country as numbers of people on the streets and languishing in shelters have their homelessness ended. We all know there is much more to do. But that additional work must be informed by what’s working. That’s why these Summits are so important. Our Pursuit Sessions on media, research, partnership, housing, and resources are all intended to bring innovations into interaction that lead to “takeaways” and added value back home. Our “Peer to Peer Sessions” affirm the commonness of our efforts and struggles and reaffirm our partnership in overcoming them. Our A Home for Every American Awards draw attention to those who are making significant contributions across our country in gaining positive visibility in the pursuit of outcomes, in informing us through research of what works and what doesn’t, and in creating and applying innovative ideas, sometimes innovating the innovation.

“All of these sessions inform and fuel our national conspiracy to end the moral, and spiritual, and human wrong of homelessness. A conspiracy of innovators, elected officials, public and private sector implementers. To interfere in, to intervene, to bring remedy to the long misery of homelessness in our country. A conspiracy that knows no partisanship, other than being partisan to the best ideas that are creating results in the lives of homeless people.”

St. Patrick Center in St. Louis CEO Dan Buck shared emcee duties with USICH Director Mangano who was called to testify at a congressional hearing on homeless veterans during part of the summit. A seven-time Emmy Award winning TV and radio personality, Mr. Buck made a life changing decision on St Patrick’s Day 2003 to “answer the christian call to service.” As he explained in his opening remarks, he became CEO of the St. Patrick Center, a grassroots, faith-based homeless services agency because “I saw the plight of the homeless as something that didn’t have to be.” Mr. Buck has been instrumental in growing the St. Patrick Center into a model for public-private partnerships and for volunteerism, with more than 3100 volunteers. St. Patrick Center is recognized nationally for its innovative, successful programs that focus on Housing, Employment, and Mental Health. It has Missouri’s largest outpatient alcohol and drug treatment program. In 2006 St. Patrick Center was given the prestigious Excellence Award by the U.S. Department of Commerce, as the top faith-based organization in America. The Center has a vision to end chronic homelessness, create partnerships that achieve change, and create replicable models. More information on the St. Patrick Center can be found at www.stpatrickcenter.org.

Two highlights of this year’s National Summit were appearances by Pursuit of Happyness author Chris Gardner (by live video broadcast from Hawaii) and Louise Casey. Introducing Mr. Gardner, Director Mangano said meeting and talking with Chris after reading his book “reminded me of one of my abolitionist heroes, Frederick Douglas. He had been a slave and could speak authentically and articulately about his experience. In many ways, Chris’ story informs our efforts. Rather than dumbing down the disadvantaged to a life of dependency, our 10-Year Plans are offering opportunity to rise to full potential.” Director Mangano also noted the 32 pre-release opinion leader screenings of the movie that had been held in 10- Year Plan cities. On its release, Pursuit of Happyness became the #1 movie in the country and eventually in the world.

Mr. Gardner appeared by live video from Hawaii, where he was with Governor Linda Lingle who'd gathered together state officials, housing developers, and service providers to discuss overcoming homelessness. Governor Lingle was a recipient last year of an inaugural Council A Home for Every American Award for her efforts to create new housing opportunties and bring remedy to homeless individuals and families in Hawaii. In his remarks to Summit participants, Mr. Gardner said that he had been doing a lot of thinking and praying about how he can best "use his 15 minutes of fame" to contribute to the dialogue that can bring results on homelessness. He shared a moving experience he'd had during the movie's filming when he learned from 2 of the 250 homeless persons who'd been hired as extras for a day that the $500 they were going to be paid that day was finally going to give them enough savings to rent a place to live. " Imagine, hundreds of millions were spent to make a movie and just $500 was all it took to get a family off the street."

The pain of the misery of his homelessness experience was still evident when he was asked what it was like to go back after 20 years. In responding, he described how on a visit with Will Smith, who portrays him in the movie, to the bathroom where he and his son had slept, he had not been able to stay in there more than a minute before feeling the need to leave. " When you have that experience of homelessness, it stays with you forever," he said. In response to a question from Director Mangano about his future plans, Mr. Gardner said that he was currently working on a second book and reaffirmed his openness to spending "his 15 minutes of fame" to make a difference on the issue of homelessness.

Louise Casey was appointed in 1999 by then newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair to head up a Rough Sleepers Initiative for which the Prime Minister established a goal of reducing the number of people “sleeping rough on the street” by 2/3rds in three years. The success of meeting that goal nearly a year ahead of schedule created a “tipping point” that has resulted in support for increased investments in solutions to family and youth homelessness in the UK. Ms. Casey was later appointed National Director of the Government’s Anti-social Behaviour Unit, also based in the Home Office and most recently has been the Government’s coordinator for Respect, a cross- government Task Force based in the Home Office focused on support for problematic families. In her remarks at the Summit, Ms. Casey described a number of steps that led to meeting the targeted result of reducing rough sleeping by 2/3rds. She also noted those reductions have been maintained and in some areas the reductions have been even greater.

• Government took responsibility for the problem. There had been many efforts over previous years to “do something about homelessness” but always before the responsibility for the problem and for solutions had been delegated to others.

• The Government developed and laid out the rationale for why they were targeting rough sleeping – reaching out to the most vulnerable – determined the definition for that targeted population and used repeated street counts, done in partnership with providers and advocates but never delegated to them, to measure their progress. They also collected and analyzed cost benefit data.

• Relentlessly kept their focus including resources on the targeted population.

"Results are infectious." said Good to Great author Jim Collins at the 2006 National Summit, and his words have proven to be true. In this plenary session, cities were invited to share reports of reductions in street and chronic homelessness being achieved through their 10-Year Plan strategies. The presentations started with recently reported results from three cities representing the geographic spread of the country from Quincy, MA to St. Louis, MO to Portland, OR.

• Quincy, MA now in its third year of Plan implementation, a 55% decrease in chronic homelessness.

• St. Louis, MO, one and a half years into Plan implementation, a 26% decrease in homelessness and 34% in chronic homelessness since the 2004 baseline report.

• Portland, OR, two years into Plan implementation, a 39% decrease in street homelessness and a whopping and corroborated decrease of 70% in chronic homelessness.

• Norfolk, two years into Plan implementation, a 19% overall decrease in homelessness and 26% decrease in family homelessness and importantly,"not a single child sleeping on the street.”

• Denver, CO, nearly 18 months into Plan implementation, an 11% decrease after six months, 27% at the end of the first year and expect to have 18 month results soon.

• San Francisco, between 2003-2005, a 41% decrease in street homelessness and currently tallying results from latest street count.

• New York City, a 20% decrease in single adults in shelter and a 19% decrease in street homelessness last year.

• Also reported for NYC were results from implementation of Common Ground’s 2003 Street to Home initiative which focused on a 250 block area in west midtown Manhattan where there’s been a 43% decline in street homelessness among people who’d averaged 9 years of homelessness and in a further targeting of a 20 block area around Time Square, where homelessness averaged 14 years, an 87% reduction. Of the 144 dually diagnosed, severely mentally ill and disabled persons housed, 93% have retained their housing.

• Montgomery, Ala, two years into Plan implementation, a 14% decrease in chronic homelessness; 37% decrease in unsheltered persons; 33% decrease in emergency shelter use; 47% increase in transitional housing beds created and a 12% increase in permanent housing units created.

• Nashua, NH, four years into Plan implementation, after a finding a couple years ago a 40% decrease in chronic homelessness, the community began quarterly counts and this year can report an additional 22% decrease in chronic homelessness.

Pictured here is John Yazwinski of Father Bill's Place reporting the Quincy results.

Separate interactive sessions were held on the Pursuit of Media, Research, Partnership, Housing, and Resources to bring innovators into interaction that would lead to “takeaways” for more effective plan implementation.

PURSUIT OF MEDIA

Media is playing an influential role in the change that is occurring locally and nationally on the issue of homelessness. Beginning with the San Francisco Chronicle’s series by Kevin Fagan in 2003, and followed by reporting and editorial series in papers from Concord, NH to Boston to Asheville, NC, Norfolk, Atlanta, Denver, and Los Angeles, media focus on homelessness, 10-Year Plans, results, and events such as Project Homeless Connect are at a level unprecedented on this issue. The momentum of events has resulted in national print and broadcast media attention ranging from Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker to NOW on PBS, National Public Radio, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Christian Science Monitor, Bloomberg, The Economist, and USA Today.

Some jurisdictions have smartly included explicit commitments to communications and media strategies in their 10-Year Plans. Linda Bazerjian, New York City Department of Homeless Services Communications Director, Michigan State Housing Development Authority consultant Katie Donovan, City of Knoxville Community Development Office Project Manager Michael Dunthorn, and Broward County, Florida Homeless Initiatives Partnership Administrator Steve Werthman shared examples of how their jurisdictions have approached incorporating media strategies into their 10-Year Plan efforts.

Linda Bazerjian, NYC

Public Agenda, a non partisan research group conducted focus groups and in depth random telephone surveys of 1,002 New Yorkers from across the city to assess perceptions and policies around homelessness to share this information on attitudes and understanding of homelessness with the Department of Homeless Services and other agencies. Among key findings from "Compassion, Concern and Conflicted Feelings: New Yorkers on Homelessness and Housing:

• 67 percent say most homeless people are "homeless because of circumstances beyond their control"
• 90 percent agree that "everyone has a basic right to shelter" (70% strongly agree and 20% somewhat agree)
• 85 percent approve of having their tax dollars pay for housing for the homeless (53% strongly approve and 32% approve somewhat)
• 62 percent would increase public spending on programs for the homeless
• 96 percent say that benefits for the homeless should be conditional on such things as getting training, employment, and/or substance abuse and mental health treatment. (72% strongly agree and 24% somewhat agree)

The complete report can be found at www.publicagenda.org.

Katie Donovan, consultant to Michigan Statewide 10-Year Plan Effort

Katie Donovan, President of Donovan and Smith Marketing and Media Inc, is a long time consultant to the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. In October 2006 under the leadership of Governor Jennifer Granholm and Michael DeVos of MSHDA, Michigan became the first state in the nation to have “every square mile of the state” covered by a 10-Year Plan. Ms. Donovan described the importance of media to developing statewide support for the 10-Year Planning effort and offered some practical suggestions for other jurisdictions.

• Recognize that media can be a passport to the business community
• Engage the media in your process
• Build a communications plan that envisions a long term commitment by media outlets to coverage
• Build in opportunities for coverage in your communications plan—events, milestones, legislation
• Be prepared for unexpected opportunities such as the screenings of the Pursuit of Happyness facilitated by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

Mike Dunthorn, City of Knoxville Community Development Project Manager

Knoxville has successfully engaged the media to advance the goals of the 10-Year Plan. Keys to this effort have been:

• Have a good 10-Year Plan.
• Create a coherent message.

"Chronic homelessness can be ended if there is collaboration and cooperation among government, private and public services, businesses, faith-based organizations, and neighborhoods.”

• Lay out the facts:

Who are the homeless? Who are the chronically homeless? How big is the problem? How does it affect the community? What are the myths? Why a Ten Year Plan? How is it different? Why should anyone care? What can the community do?

• Continually communicate the message using Board and Plan leaders and the bully pulpit of the Mayor's office.
• Celebrate milestones and successes.

Steve Werthman, Broward County Homeless Initiative Partnership Administrator

Broward County has engaged in a multi-faceted media campaign to inform the community about their 10-Year Plan, implementation efforts such as Broward's participation in the federal Collaborative Initiative to Help End Chronic Homelessnss (CHI), and results. Among the media strategies was a one hour Town Hall meeting on the 10-Year Plan shown several times on local cable tv. The 10-Year Plan kickoff last year that featured keynote remarks by USICH Director Mangano, and the unveiling of data that showed a $600,000 cost savings from implementation of the CHI initiative, generated numerous newspaper articles and editorials. Developing a press kit, creating a media contact list, and cultivating relationships with individual reporters are all elements of the media strategy employed by Broward County. More information about Broward County's efforts, including the CHI cost savings data which is included in their Homeless Initiative Evaluation Report, can be found on their website.

PURSUIT OF RESEARCH

Dr. Dennis Culhane

Dr. Culhane is a Professor of Social Welfare Policy in the School of Social Work at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Culhane was selected to receive an inaugural A Home for Every American Award last year for his research defining the dynamics of a typology of homelessness that has been central to the reexamination of public policy and program approaches to homelessness including the Administration’s initiative to end chronic homelessness in 10 years. At last week’s Summit, Dr. Culhane reviewed Emerging Research on the Costs of Homelessness, including the USICH compilation of community cost studies related to 10-Year Plan development, a HUD/HHS commissioned literature review, and new research on the dynamics and costs of family homelessness being conducted by Dr.Culhane and his colleagues.

Dr. Culhane noted several lessons can be learned from the community cost studies which USICH has collected from across the nation:

• High service users exist in every community
• Cost studies can be used to leverage political will and resources
• High service users can be identified, housed, and offsets found after housing placements

Preliminary findings from the research into the dynamics and costs of family homelessness include:

• Most families (75%) leave shelters quickly and don’t return
• 20-25% have long stays and use 55-70% of resources
• BUT, unlike the single homeless population, long stays don’t indicate personal barriers (such as substance abuse or serious mental illness) to housing stability

His findings suggest policy discussions would benefit from reframing the question from “Will intensive and expensive interventions work (yes)?” to “What is the least intensive and expensive intervention needed to achieve a positive outcome?”

Jamie Van Leeuwen, Lessons from Evaluation of Denvers Road Home Implementation

As Project Manager for Denver’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness, Denvers Road Home, Jamie Van Leeuwen oversees fundraising, public relations, and evaluation. Under the leadership of Mayor John Hickenlooper, Denver’s Road Home was developed as a joint city-county effort by the Denver Commission to End Homelessness involving over 350 diverse stakeholders. The Plan, adopted by the city and county in 2005, is being implemented in partnership with the Mile High United Way. In the first year of implementation, 423 new units of housing were added, 701 homeless people were assisted in finding work, 677 individuals received treatment services, 156 families received eviction assistance, and 121 families were partnered with faith-based mentoring teams. Mayor Hickenlooper received an inaugural A Home for Every American Award last year from USICH for his “political will, support for permanent supportive housing solutions, dedication to innovative partnerships with the faith based sector, and focus on results.”

Mr. Van Leeuwen discussed the importance of evaluation to the Plan’s ongoing successful implementation. “Accountability is critical when you need to raise $46 million in new funds for the first four years of the plan’s implementation,” said Mr. Van Leeuwen. It’s important to get results and share those results with the community. Rather than waiting until the end of a funding cycle for a report, Denver has implemented an ongoing dialogue with funded providers beginning three months into the funding cycle. The effort is to learn as quickly as possible where system breakdowns may be happening. He also noted the importance of cost benefit analysis for leveraging additional funding commitments. A study of 25 heavy users of the community’s drug detox center showed a cost of $100,000 a year each. Now 18 of those individuals are in supportive housing costing $15,000 a year in services. Denver has also adopted the Project Homeless Connect innovation. Its upcoming 4th Homeless Connect is being sponsored by the University of Denver which is also planning to evaluate the event in a number of areas including a cost benefit analysis of Health Clinic services at the PHC, and consumer and community attitudinal changes pre-and-post event.

Dr. James Dunford, Quantifying Community Costs of Chronic Homelessness

As Medical Director of the City of San Diego EMS system and associated with the University of California at San Diego Medical Center, Dr. Dunford was one of the first to take note of the revolving door involving jail, detox facilities, and hospitalization for chronically homeless inebriates and to attempt to quantify the costs. A survey of two San Diego hospitals (UCSD and Mercy) between July 1997 and December 1998 revealed that 15 chronically homeless inebriates accounted for 417 emergency room visits at a cost of $1.476 million. This study has been used by USICH to inspire cost studies in other communities and to inspire jurisdictional leaders to exert political will on the issue of homelessness. A second survey, published last year in the Annals of Emergency Medicine looked at EMS records, Emergency Room visits, and inpatient stays at UCSD and Mercy Hospitals from January 2000- December 2003 of persons entering detox at least five times a month. The study revealed 2335 paramedic transports and 3361 days of hospitalizations at a cost of $1.3 million for EMS, $2.5 million for emergency rooms, and over $17 million for inpatient stays. The records also showed that most were men, predominantly white, and 73% were less than 50 years of age.

Through a diverse group of community stakeholders including police and the sheriff's office, prosecution and public defenders offices, Superior Court and a medical home, and initially funded through tobacco settlement funds, the Serial Inebriate Program (SIP) was founded. Using section 647f of the penal code of California which prohibits drunkenness in public, the program aims to end the revolving door of community medical and correction costs for chronically homeless inebriates by offering treatment in lieu of custody and providing small group supportive housing. Escalating jail sentences with each repeated arrest from 30 to 60 to 90 days etc, increases the probability that the individual will eventually select treatment rather than jail time. Dr. Dunford noted that of 280 treatment offers made, 55% or 155 accepted. The annual cost of the program is $200,000, whereas 146 of those who accepted treatment had been costing the community in jail, ER and hospitalization services $72,000/month. Dr. Dunford noted that a number of other communities have visited the San Diego SIP program and have either established or are in the process of establishing similar programs including Santa Cruz, San Jose, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Seattle, and San Francisco.

PURSUIT OF HOUSING

Tim Marx, Minnesota Housing Finance Agency

With leadership from Governor Tim Pawlenty and assistance from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, a broad based group of stakeholders created a seven year, $540 million Business Plan to End Long Term Homelessness in Minnesota. Importantly, this business plan identified and “costed out” the types of housing that would be created in each year of the plan, the associated services that would be needed, and sources of financing. The Minnesota State Housing Finance Agency “jump started” the plan’s implementation with a $50 million commitment, including dedicating 25% of tax credits to supportive housing development. Initial skepticism was overcome when the plan met its first year implementation goal of creating 200 units. The Governor subsequently included funding in the capital budget to continue moving the plan forward and the current biennial budget proposes $25 million for supportive housing and other efforts to end long term homelessness. Three years into the plan, the housing targets have continued to be met with over 1,091 units. Additionally, Hennepin County/Minneapolis/Ramsey/ and St. Paul have embarked on a 10 Year Plan which complements and supplements the state effort.

Catherine (Katie) Kitchin, City of Norfolk

Katie Kitchin is director of Norfolk’s Office to End Homelessness, created by Mayor Paul Fraim as part of his leadership in promoting a city and regional effort to end homelessness. (See related A Home for Every American Award story this issue).

When funding available through the community’s own Continuum of Care was insufficient to create the SROs needed to meet the supportive housing needs of long term homeless individuals, the city reached out to the neighboring communities of Virginia Beach and Portsmouth to develop a regional approach that would leverage CoC funding, tax credits and local contributions. A first project has been opened in Norfolk and a second project is being developed in Virginia Beach.

Charles Gagnon, South Middlesex Opportunity Council (SMOC)

Mr. Gagnon is the Chief Operating Officer for the South Middlesex Opportunity Council, Inc, a private non profit corporation that operates as the regional anti-poverty agency for central Massachusetts and manages over 70 community service programs throughout the state.

SMOC develops, owns, and operates 1400 units of housing, 80% of which are serving homeless and formerly homeless individuals and families. SMOC advocates ending homelessness through housing production. SMOC's Housing Corporation employs an imaginative development model that integrates targeted human services with housing program units. Despite siting challenges caused by NIMBYism, SMOC has succeeded in creating 250 units over the past 14 months.

George Smart, Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership

Mr. Smart is Vice President of Clinical Operations for the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership (MBHP), a wholly owned subsidiary of Value Options- - one of the largest privately held managed care companies in the country, Mr. Smart has developed partnerships between Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance and MBHP to collaboratively use Medicaid dollars to support Housing First models. The collaboratively developed Community Support Program for People Experiencing Chronic Homelessness (CSPECH) has successfully placed more than 90 people into Housing First programs. Mr. Smart’s message was that 10-Year Plan efforts should not overlook managed care as a resource for supportive housing efforts. Contract performance standards and incentives can be tools to launch effective initiatives that reach key homeless populations.

Officer Dean Koehnen, St. Paul Police Department

Officer Koehnen is a 14 year member of the St. Paul Police Department, currently assigned to code enforcement. With his partner Sgt Paul Paulos and a social worker, Bret Byfield, Officer Koehnen is working through the city’s Police Homeless Outreach Program (P-HOP) with landlords of vacant buildings to create housing opportunities for chronically homeless men and women. The officers recognized from their work on the streets that many homeless people they were encountering had criminal records, poor rental histories, and in some cases ongoing substance abuse issues that served to exclude them from housing opportunities. Through his code enforcement work, Officer Koehnen was also aware of vacant buildings in the city. The effort began when the officers were able to convince the owners of three buildings that had been vacant for 9 months to repair and make the units available to house persons who’d been living on the streets identified through the P-HOP program. The program housed more 53 men and women in the first year.

John Yazwinski, Father Bill’s Place, Quincy, MA

Father Bill’s Place began as an interfaith shelter that has become a partner in community efforts to create housing, and in particular permanent supportive housing. Father Bill’s Place is committed to “taking down” shelter beds as new Housing First permanent housing units are created in the community. So far 47 permanent housing units have been created and 40 shelter beds have been taken down in the last three years. The 47 persons placed into permanent supportive housing were identified as among the heaviest users of shelter beds. Over the past three years, chronic homelessness has decreased in the city by 55%. The effort to create more supportive housing in the city is generating “believers” and more community support as business and citizens recognize that “they are seeing fewer homeless people in the doorways” In one area of the city where persons living long term on the streets were targeted for Housing First efforts, the police report an 82% decrease in calls and the chief medical officer at the hospital reported $60,000 in inpatient and detox cost savings.

PURSUIT OF PARTNERSHIP

Several national organizations were invited to attend the Summit in recognition of their partnership with USICH in the effort to end chronic homelessness and reduce all homelessness. Gene Lowe representing the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Kheng Mei Tan, of the Best Practices Center for the National Governors Association, David Feehan of the International Downtown Association, Dick Foot of the YMCA spoke briefly about their support of the partnership effort on ending homelessness and their work with USICH. Gene Lowe traced the partnership between the US. Conference of Mayors (USCM) and USICH to Director Mangano’s address at the 2003 USCM Washington DC meeting during which he challenged 100 mayors to develop 10-Year Plans. Today, the number of jurisdictional 10-Year Plan efforts numbers almost 300. The National League of Cities, National Association of Counties, and National Alliance on Mental Illness are other national organizations which are supporting the national effort to end chronic homelessness.

PURSUIT OF RESOURCES

In the interactive Pursuit of Resources session, federal and state agency officials offered insights into the availability of resources.

Among the federal officials, Melissa Pardue, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Human Services Policy, Department of Health and Human Services discussed the Department’s technical assistance efforts; Mark Johnston, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Needs Assistance Programs, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, discussed HUD’s Continuum of Care grants and particular the Department’s willingness to work with Continua to increase the competitiveness of their applications through a greater focus on housing; Ms. Mary Ann Rooney, U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs Program Specialist described the VA as the largest funder of homeless services and housing within the federal government and described in particular the VA’s Grant and Per Diem program and Stand Downs; Ms. Mary Ann Donovan, Executive Assistant to the Administrator, Office of Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Labor, noted the Department offers both mainstream and targeted training and employment focused programs that are crucial components of comprehensive efforts to end the cycle of homelessness and encouraged participants to reach out to the DOL initiatives in communities to collaborate to better target homeless individuals. At the state level, Commissioner John Wagner of the Massachusetts Transitional Assistance Office focused on ways to increase access to food stamps and Roxane White, Manager of Human Services for the City of Denver, spoke about the collaboration with the private sector and philanthropic community to implement Denver’s Road Home 10-Year Plan.

Please visit the USICH website for additional information and materials to be posted on last week's Summit. Pictured here, from top, Dr. James Dunford, Jamie Van Leeuwen, Mark Johnston presenting at Pursuit of Resources session, Eugene Lowe of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Katie Donovan, group photo including Roseanne Haggerty (l) and Mike Dunthorn (center), and Steve Werthman (bottom photo).

The National Partnership to End Chronic Homelessness being constellated by the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness is built on the recognition that no one level of government can get the job done alone and, not even every level of government partnered together, can get the job done without the mindset and resources of the private sector. Working in partnership, using research findings, developing and rapidly disseminating innovations in housing and service delivery, and focusing on outcomes, the National Partnership is getting results. At last week’s Second Annual Summit for Jurisdictional Leaders Ending Chronic Homelessness, USICH recognized outstanding partnership, innovation, research, and results with A Home for Every American Awards in ten categories: Governor, Mayor, County, Community Champion, Media, Research, Innovation, Inspiration, Faith, and Project Homeless Connect.

Governor Award: Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm

Since taking office in 2003, Governor Granholm has successfully resolved more than $4 billion in budget deficits and created greater accountability for results while striving to improve the lives of Michigan’s families and the state’s poorest citizen. Under her leadership and the team she assembled including the Michigan State Housing Development Agency headed by Michael DeVos and the Secretaries of the Departments of Human Services. Community Health, and Corrections, Michigan became the first state in the nation to have every square mile covered by a 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness. The simultaneous unveiling of 60 plans covering all 83 counties was made at a statewide summit in October 2006. Governor Granholm was able to join last week’s Summit participants to accept the award by live video broadcast. She noted that through the 60 local 10-Year Plans and state efforts, forty strategies that form "a comprehensive and realistic program to end homelessness” are being implemented with $45 million in new statewide funding targeted to the housing and service needs of people who are chronically homeless, young people, survivors of domestic violence, and families with children as well as an additional $25 million for homeless veterans. Highlights of her remarks can be found in Words of the Week in this edition of the enews.

Mayor Award: Norfolk, Virginia Mayor Paul Fraim

Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim, who recently reported a 19% overall reduction in homelessness, has sought to adopt every proven innovation and best practice in his effort to end chronic homelessness in his city and increasingly in the region through his outreach and collaboration with neighboring mayors. He became a signatory mayor to the U.S. Conference of Mayors Covenant of Partnership to End Homelessness with USICH to increase his city’s reach into research and best practices with other mayors from around the nation. His community’s exemplary 10-Year Plan is housing focused, linked to the state plan, and is already achieving results. He created a Norfolk Office to End Homelessness and appointed a city point person, Katie Kitchin. Through that office, Mayor Fraim has adopted the Project Homeless Connect innovation, already holding three Connect events. He is also pursuing a regional examination of prisoner re-entry impact and solutions. Mayor Fraim has focused his faith and his political will on the lives of the poorest in his community and is achieving results. Highlights of Mayor Fraim’s remarks at the Summit can be found in Words of the Week in this edition of the enews.

County Award: Washington State Counties- received by King County, Washington Councilmember Kathy Lambert

King County, Washington Councilmember Kathy Lambert received this award on behalf of the 34 county governments in Washington State that have developed and are implementing plans to end homelessness. The initial response by 11 Washington counties to USICH's promotion of 10-Year Plan efforts motivated legislative efforts that led to the passage by the State of Washington Legislature of the landmark Homelessness Housing and Assistance Act of 2005. That legislation directed counties to develop plans and dedicated a $10 document fee to state and local efforts to reduce homelessness, generating approximately $15 million a year to help support county plan efforts. Today, all 34 county plans have been developed and are being implemented with results reported of a 10% decrease in King County, 20% decrease in Benton/Franklin Counties and a 38% decrease in chronic homelessness in Pierce County.

While Councilwoman Lambert was given this award on behalf of all her elected county colleagues in the state, her leadership in the implementation of King County’s plan has been exemplary. It was her dedication that helped bring 1811 Eastlake, permanent supportive housing for long term homeless street alcoholics operated by the Downtown Emergency Service Center in Seattle, to fruition. In her remarks, Councilmember Lambert cited some of the achievements from implementation of King County’s Plan including creation of 963 units between 2004-2006, an additional 200 units for severely mentally ill opening this spring, and a 20% reduction in the number of unsheltered persons. Discussing the 1811 Eastlake project, Councilmember Lambert noted that 75 of the 79 most frequent users of city detox services accepted housing at 1811 Eastlake. There’s also been a significant reduction reported in visits to level 3 trauma care. She noted that the County is beginning a focus on homeless and at risk youth, and in one initiative borrowed from San Diego provided vision tests to young adults in jail and found that 83% could not see properly.

COMMUNITY CHAMPION: DALLAS ‘HOMELESS CZAR’ MIKE RAWLINGS

Mike Rawlings was appointed by Dallas Mayor Laura Miller as the city’s second “homeless czar” succeeding civic leader Tom Dunning. Mr. Rawlings had a long resume as a well known business leader. He has been CEO of several regional and worldwide companies, including the largest pizza chain in the world, Pizza Hut, and is now a general partner of CIC Partners, a Dallas private equity fund.

Mr. Rawlings has been an exemplary community champion, forwarding the objectives of the Dallas 10-Year Plan that was developed by Mayor Miller and city officials in partnership with the United Way, the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance, and Deloitte Consulting. Mr. Rawlings has overseen the merger of the Mayor’s Task Force with the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance; has worked with business, civic and government leaders to emphasize the need for permanent supportive housing; and just two weeks ago, oversaw the groundbreaking for the city’s Homeless Assistance Center, a 24/7 permanent connect for homeless people. Mike Rawlings understands that innovation and a business plan will disturb the status quo to achieve outcomes.

Mike Rawlings was chosen for the USICH 2007 Community Champion award for bringing a business sensibility to his community’s implementation of a 10-Year Plan, for representing the needs of his community’s poorest to all sectors of the community in Dallas, and creating a trajectory of change.

PROJECT HOMELESS CONNECT : Minneapolis/Hennepin County MN Commissioner Gail Dorfman and 10-Year Plan Coordinator Cathy ten Broeke; and Portland,Multnomah County OR ,with Jamaal Folsom representing City Commissioner Erik Sten

When San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom created Project Homeless Connect to fuse the political, civic, and business elements of his city in an innovative one day, one stop for street and sheltered homeless, he replicated for that population what Stand Downs had offered to homeless veterans for years. After visiting several SF Connect events, which are held every other month, USICH, with the mayor’s blessing, began encouraging elected officials around the country to commit “legitimate larceny” and replicate the Connect effort. More than 100 jurisdictions have adopted Project Homeless Connect offering a variety of services and quality of life resources to more than 25,000 people.

As early adopters of this innovation, Minneapolis/Hennepin County and Portland/Multnomah County have regularly held Connect events and the results in the lives of homeless people in their communities has been notable. In Minneapolis/Hennepin County, a partnership led by Commissioner Gail Dorfman and Mayor R.T. Rybak has ensured that the fusion of political and civic will at the center of their 10-Year Plan is made visible in Project Homeless Connect. The extraordinary person they chose to facilitate the planning process for both the 10-Year Plan and Project Homeless Connect, Cathy ten Broeke, has given new definition to collaboration and hospitality. In Oregon, Portland Mayor Tom Potter and City Commissioner Erik Sten have led a 10- Year Plan process with Multnomah County that is demonstrating remarkable results—a 70% decrease in chronic homelessness- and one of the elements of that successful effort has been the adoption of the Project Homeless Connect innovation. Last year, Portland innovated the innovation by becoming the first jurisdiction to hold a Project Homeless Connect targeted to families.

Media: Mike Dunthorn, Knoxville, TN

When Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam and his county counterpart, Mike Ragsdale, decided to take the leap of faith and sign on to the National Partnership by creating and implementing a 10-Year Plan, they knew that there would be a few doubters and critics for such an effort in a mid-size city in Tennessee. They turned to Mike Dunthorn to bring visibility, understanding, and credibility to the effort. (see related story this issue under Pursuit of Media)

Research Award: Dr. James Dunford

Dr. Dunford has been a pioneer in quantifying community service system costs of chronic homelessness. His work has been used by USICH to inspire other communities to undertake cost analyses and to inspire jurisdictional leaders to exert their political will on the issue of homelessness. (see related story this issue under Pursuit of Research)

Innovation Award: Officer Dean Koehnen, St Paul Police Department

Last year, Officer Koehnen and his partner, Sgt Paul Paulos, became the first police officers in the country to be designated as organizers for a community Project Homeless Connect. The officers were selected for this role based on their exemplary efforts through the Police Homeless Outreach Program to create a housing program that is linking long term homeless individuals with landlords (see related story under Pursuit of Housing). For the Connect event, the officers helped bring together 70 community organizations and over 250 volunteers to provide hospitality and services to 936 people. Through their housing efforts, more than 53 formerly homeless men and women living long term on the streets of St. Paul are now housed.

Faith Award: Gil Davis

In presenting USICH's first ever A Home for Every American Award for Faith to Gil Davis, the Council is celebrating a life that has moved beyond homelessness to home, work, and inspiration. Faith, the Scripture says, is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Mr. Davis, who spent five winters living on the streets, is the substance and evidence for all of us that solutions to homelessness work, overcoming all of the myths and stereotypes. He and many thousands of others across the country are the evidence that our National Partnership has the right trajectory and bullseye. Highlights of his inspirational remarks are included in Words of the Week in this edition of the enews.

Inspiration Award: Louise Casey (see related story this issue)

Pictured from top, King County Councilmember Lambert; Norfolk Mayor Fraim; Mike Rawlings of Dallas; Cathy ten Broeke (l) and Gail Dorfman at podium from MN with Council Regional Coordinator Michael German (center); Michigan's Michael DeVos (center) representing Governor Granholm with Council Deputy Director Mary Ellen Hombs at far right; St. Paul Officer Koehnen; Faith award recipient Gil Davis; and Louise Casey.

. . . I’ve been the mayor in Norfolk for 13 years. For nearly the first 10 years, our policy in Norfolk was not to have a policy about homelessness. It was someone else’s issue. It was the churches, the foundations. . . just something the city didn’t feel like it needed to be part of.

. . . What originally attracted me was the notion you could save taxpayers money by being cost effective, by ending the ricocheting that the homeless were doing between the justice system, the shelters and hospitals.

. . . It seemed almost counterintuitive that you could provide permanent supportive housing and save money. It turns out you can.

. . . So we developed a 10-Year Plan and tried to adopt all the best policies that the Council (USICH) laid out for us. We tried to do it the right way.

. . . Now we’ve become re-energized, “remoralized” as Council Director Mangano calls it, to the notion that you have to do something for your poorest neighbors. So not only are we saving money but what drive us now and our passion for it is that we are doing the right thing and are having an impact on the lives of so many of our citizens.

. . . Katie Kitchin heads up our department to end homelessness. We have hundreds of people she’s enlisted (for Project Homeless Connect). It’s become a real cause in our city. At our State of the City Address which is attended by 1100 business people, the one line that got the most applause and support was that we are making good on our promise to end homelessness in our city and showing results.

. . . Thank you for recognizing what we are doing in Michigan and honoring us with the “Home for Every American” Award. This is a credit to Michael DeVos and his team at the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. He is leading our efforts in Michigan, and his vision and implementation are producing real results.

. . . We can all agree: No man should have his life threatened by living on the streets through a cold Michigan winter. No child should have her liberty forever compromised by missing school because her parents were kicked out of their house and onto the streets. And no American’s pursuit of happiness should be sidetracked or set back or stopped because she lacks basic shelter.

. . . In America, in our homeland, in this day and age when we are all exposed to vacation homes and motor homes and bigger and better homes than ever before – when we have been able, as a society, to create all of these amazing and wonderful homes to enjoy and celebrate – how can we continue to accept homelessness?

. . . For a long time, we have had noble individuals and organizations working tirelessly to meet the needs of the homeless. But often their energies have been focused on the most urgent short term needs of emergency shelter, rent aid and utilities relief. Now, all of us together are leading a new charge, with a focus on policies that can permanently eliminate homelessness. In partnership with the US Interagency Council on Homelessness, as well as with hundreds of nonprofit organizations across our state, and numerous state agencies, in 2006 we began the Campaign to End Homelessness in Michigan.

. . . We came together and created sixty separate local ten-year “Plans to End Homelessness” that cover our entire state – both peninsulas, all eighty three counties.

. . . I believe that we can do this. When we came together to launch this campaign, leaders in Michigan wrote out a vision statement. And in that statement, we all agreed that “we will realize our vision of ending homelessness in Michigan because the collective capacity of our compassion is greater than the depth of this challenge.”

. . . And it is true. This isn’t rocket science. We know how to do this – it’s a matter of focus, and will power and compassion – and funding to back it all up. We are on the right track in Michigan and we are going to make sure that we don’t lose focus -- we will continue to fan the flames of our compassion.

. . . I'm here speaking for those who are out there. In 2002, I was diagnosed with manic depression/bipolar disorder. I tried to manage my life. I spent 5 winters on the streets. Then because of outreach efforts and the St. Patrick Center, I got off the street.

. . . I had aspirations to be a productive, contributing citizen. Your efforts are not in vain. . . It's difficult when you're handed off from one agency to another. . . by working together you make it a lot easier for us who may not have transporation, clothes, or smell nice.

. . . I wasn't looking for a hand out. I needed a helping hand out. . . I relearned responsibility. I hold myself accountable for the help I've received. I do the things that have helped me remain housed for the last 15 months. . . My recovery compels me to help others.

. . . I thank Dan ( Dan Buck, CEO St. Patrick Center, shown here (r) with Mr. Davis) for his faith, support, and the opportunity. I went through every program they had. . . It was a process. . . I never thought in a million years I would be standing here.

email: ichnews@setechnology.com

web: http://www.usich.gov