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At its Registry Week last May, Hartford, CT set an initial goal of housing 40 people. This month, they reported their 44th placement, making them the first Campaign community to reach its target.

“It’s been an amazing success,” says Christie Corrigan of Hartford’s Journey Home. “The key was to get as many partners as possible on board from the beginning.”

Corrigan and her team met with excellent results in that area, bringing nearly every key player in the Capital Region to the table. Especially significant was the early support of nine local shelters, each of which receives updates from Corrigan regularly.

Each month, Journey Home sends partner shelters a spreadsheet with the names and housing status of every vulnerable person on Hartford’s Registry. Shelters then report back on who is accessing their services, and Journey Home uses the information to enhance homeless outreach efforts.

Corrigan says the key to getting such strong buy-in from the shelter community was mobilizing a large volunteer count well ahead of Registry Week with the help of Hands On Hartford, a local branch of the national Hands On Network.

“At first, shelters thought they were going to have to do everything themselves,” she explains. “When they realized how many people from the community were prepared to pitch in, the Campaign began to seem much less overwhelming. We all realized this was something we could do together.”

The local V.A. has also played a crucial role in the success of Hartford’s effort. Officials there meet regularly with Journey Home to review the list of homeless veterans remaining on the streets and revise their action plans.

“It’s a very progressive V.A.,” says Corrigan.

Recently, the V.A. convened a local summit on veteran homelessness, to which it invited local service providers, advocates, policymakers and landlords. Officials used the opportunity to update the community on their efforts as well as their strategic goals for the future. At the end, they took questions from everyone present and urged people to suggest ideas for improvement.

“The event was standing room only,” says Corrigan. “It was incredible to see the V.A. take such an open, committed posture. It’s generated a lot of momentum in our community.”

That attitude from a key community partner is a big reason that Hartford has met with such impressive early success.

And what does the community plan to do now that it has reached its original housing goal?

“We surveyed 367 people and found 176 of them to be vulnerable,” says Corrigan. “We’re ready to keep on going.”