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“Everybody loves a good idea,” Nolan Nelson observed after the completion of Louisville, KY's recent Registry Week. But “100,000 Homes moves people from having a good idea into acting on this good idea.”

 

Nelson, along with the entire Rx: Housing team, experienced the power of such action firsthand over five days during Louisville's Registry Week. The week-long event bringing together volunteers to survey homeless people, enter data, and present information back to the community harnessed a staggering, unprecedented, diversity of resources. From individual volunteers to influential stakeholders, nearly everyone was inspired to help make the week a success. But while trying to pinpoint the catalyst behind such an energized network of support, Nelson whittled it down to one simple observation: The local event “provided a practical outlet for people’s hopes and dreams for their community.”

 

Since they attended a Campaign Registry Week Boot Camp in Richmond, VA earlier this year, the  Rx: Housing team has been focused on how to turn these hopes and dreams into a practical and applicable reality. Admitting that the “prospect of garnering all the necessary community buy-in and support can seem daunting,” Nelson credited the Boot Camp experience with showing him how to outline the steps he needed to take in his own community. Participants were encouraged to think locally – how could they take what they were learning and successfully implement it back home?

 

Team members in Louisville used the solid foundation they built in Richmond as a way to gather support for their local effort. Prior to the start of their Registry Week, they succeeded in securing 50 Housing Choice vouchers from the Louisville Metro Housing Authority (LMHA) for the homeless people they would soon identify as among the most vulnerable in their community. This contribution allowed Rx: Housing to commit to move nearly half of the 116 vulnerable clients they surveyed during Registry Week into permanent supportive housing. Yet beyond this generous allocation, LMHA chose to become involved on a more personal level – eight employees signed up to volunteer their time to survey each morning from 4am to 6am. Now, as Nelson explains, “when their neighbors enter their offices to complete LMHA paperwork, those employees will have a profound connection to them.”

 

The eight LMHA employees were joined by more than one hundred volunteers, all of whom tirelessly dedicated their time and energy to survey 249 homeless individuals. And, as a well-timed recognition of everyone’s efforts, the Phoenix Health Center – a key partner in Rx: Housing’s leadership team – received word during the Registry Week that it had been awarded a 3-year, $1.5M SAMHSA grant to help fund appropriate follow-up work. Once clients were moved into housing using the LMHA vouchers, the SAMHSA grant would ensure that that the Louisville team could continue to provide abundant supportive services to help keep them housed. 

 

Such a whirlwind week of activity brought out the best in the community. As Nelson explains, “It is not every day that a local restaurant donates breakfast, that a local hotel donates meeting space and coffee, that a local bank donates both money and a venue for a press conference, that volunteers gather at 4am to do street outreach, that a local Housing Authority allocates 50 Housing Choice vouchers, or that Phoenix Health Center receives a SAMHSA grant.”

 

Ultimately, in an effort to summarize the experience in a single sentence, Nelson does not hesitate: “This was the best work week I’ve ever had in my life.”