Share

About

Homelessness in America is an urgent public health emergency.

Roughly 110,000 people are “chronically homeless” in the U.S. They have lived on the streets or in shelters for at least year and daily endure serious illness and both physical and mental disabilities. The lethality of street homelessness is on par with some forms of cancer, cutting a person's lifespan by an average of 25 years. Meanwhile, the publicly funded health costs of allowing people to remain on the streets can exceed the cost of supportive housing by tens of thousands of dollars per person each year.

Something has to change.

The 100,000 Homes Campaign, parented by Community Solutions, is a national movement of communities working together to find permanent homes for 100,000 of the country’s most vulnerable homeless individuals and families by July of 2013.  This movement is already transforming America's response to homelessness by giving communities concrete tools that work and connecting them to likeminded advocates across the country. These communities are experiencing tremendous results that continue to prove that homelessness is a solvable problem.

Our team has over twenty years of experience developing smart, effective strategies to end street homelessness. In 2008, inspired by the work of advocates and innovators across the country, we began interviewing people who had made significant and measurable progress toward ending homelessness in communities around the country. We soon found that the most successful approaches fit into five categories of change, which we have outlined in our model:

  1. Build a strong, diverse local team
  2. Clarify the local demand for permanent housing
  3. Begin lining up permanent housing and support resources
  4. Start moving people into permanent housing
  5. Help people improve their health and retain their housing

Progress To Date: 

  • 112 communities have enrolled in the campaign, and collectively they have housed over 10,700 of their most long-term and vulnerable homeless people.  See their results here.
  • More than 40 communities have created broad public/private partnerships of up to 65 agencies to complete their Registry Week – the signature event of the 100,000 Homes Campaign - during which volunteers canvass the streets in the pre-dawn hours to create a by-name and -photograph database of everyone experiencing homelessness in their community. This database helps communities identify individuals who face increased mortality risk and prioritize them for permanent housing.
  • 8 communities have negotiated agreements with their public housing authorities to set aside housing vouchers for the most long-term and vulnerable people found on their streets. 
  • Many communities are creating locally funded case management programs specifically targeted to the most vulnerable people on their streets.
  • Communities have begun working to reduce the number of steps and length of time required to move homeless people from the streets into permanent homes. Communities like Washington, DC have shrunk this process from upwards of 9 months to just two weeks!

Get involved and find out more: 

We invite all communities to join the 100,000 Homes Campaign. All it takes to begin is a non-profit organization, housing authority or local government agency willing to spearhead the effort and a willingness to let all interested local groups participate. We also welcome allies, partners and sponsors at all levels of business, government, and the non-profit and philanthropic worlds.