Building Housing First into Your Community’s Homeless System

The Lancaster County Pennsylvania Experience

Kay Moshier McDivittDirector of Housing CounselingTabor Community Services, Inc.

308 East King Street, PO Box 1676Lancaster, PA 17608-1676kmmcdivitt@tabornet.org717-397-5182, ext 120

Our Community

• County of 450,000• City of Lancaster: 60,000 person situated

in the middle of Lancaster County• Very diversified population (from very rural

Mennonite/Amish communities to a large concentration of Latino’s in the city)

• Neither the city nor county government has taken ownership of homelessness, shelters or ending homelessness

Getting Started in Lancaster County

• Lancaster Interagency Council on Homelessness: Network of Service Providers and City/County Representatives– Not formally connected to city or county government– No paid staff/funding

• United Way of Lancaster County– Affordable Housing and Homelessness were key

initiatives

• Partnership– ICH approached the UW to take leadership in the 10

year plan to end homelessness

Initial Results

• Conducted a local study on issues– Participants included representatives from the

private and public sector: engage the decision makers early on

• Issued the “Impact Report” with 5 recommendations

• United Way hired a staff person to oversee the development of the 10 year plan

5 Initial Recommendations for the 10 Year Plan

1. Develop a permanent housing strategy that would create an adequate supply of affordable rental housing

2. Develop a homeless prevention strategy that would increase the range of available homeless prevention programs.

3. Develop a housing first strategy that would work to shorten the time that people spend homeless

4. Develop a transitional and permanent supportive housing strategy that clearly defines appropriate types of housing

5. Develop a homeless employment strategy that would increase the employment potential and opportunities for homeless individuals.

Elements to be included when developing the Plan

• Expand and implement the existing Housing First programs to rapidly re-house homeless persons and to target all current shelter providers. This plan should encourage shelters to include permanent housing in every case management plan.

• Develop common key outcomes and indicators for all shelter providers to track for success measurement of rapid re-housing

Adopting a Community Wide Housing First Approach: Our

Experience

• Build a system that can support the housing first approach

• Engage the Players

• Sell it to the Community at Large

• Develop Common Outcomes and Indicators to Measure Success

Building the System

• Diversity of Affordable Housing Options– Shelter Plus Care, Supportive Permanent Housing,

Homeless Section 8 Preference– Housing units must be incorporated into the overall

housing plan for the community– Proactive/Creative housing solutions

• Faith Based Community: Homes of Hope• Transitional Units into permanent units

• Housing First Programs– Connections to Landlords– Necessary follow-up Support

Engaging the Players

• Shelter Providers and Staff

• Social Service Providers

• Policy/Decision Makers

• Funders

• Community at Large

Engaging the Players

• Engage the key decision makers in the shelter system– First Step: homeless shelter and service

providers began to meet to look at how to share resources/information

– Next Step: we utilized these providers to determine who should be in planning group

– Step Three: Buy in came when shelter providers themselves set the measurements for housing first

Sell it to the Community at Large

• Sheltering the homeless is readily accepted by the community at large (NIMBY)

• Community needs to accept the shift of housing homeless persons throughout the community

• Developing and presenting a good PR presentation– Church/Faith Based Community– Service Clubs– Real Estate/Landlord Organizations

Develop Common Outcomes

• Shelter representatives took on the task of setting common outcomes to measure success of moving to permanent housing

• Gathered baseline data from each shelter and used that as a starting point

• Presented to and approved by the ICH

• Helps funders and others measure programs on an equal playing field

Issues to consider

• Affordable housing is key: we waited for developers to come up with ideas, but that doesn’t work

• While we did a lot of work on outcomes, each shelter was measuring what they saw as important, no way to see what programs work best to end homelessness

• HMIS may work to measure success of housing first, but our system has become so cumbersome, the providers no longer support it.

• Everyone wants a “piece of the pie” so suddenly everyone is saying they are doing housing first program…be clear what you define as successful housing first

• Funding: no magic dollars out there. Housing First is cost effective compared to shelter costs, but the shift of funds may take a while

Final Thoughts

• Permanent housing must be seen as the solution to ending homelessness from day one

• Everyone deserves a home• The longer we survive in shelter

environment, the harder it is to leave the cycle of homelessness

• Each community is unique: make a program fit your community

• Use what others have done, less work and more time to deal with the real issues