Financing
a Comprehensive System of Housing, Services, and Treatment
Bringing
Our Community Home will be financed by a variety of
mechanisms. As a model for the term of the Plan, our goal will
be to have half of the necessary expenses to end chronic homelessness
come through government agencies as new or redirected resources.
The remaining half will be split evenly between philanthropic
donations and business and corporate donations. To utilize the
work already being performed to solve homelessness we will nurture
relationships and collaborations with agencies to link homeless
planning and resource-allocation decisions with those efforts
underway in our communities that are addressing predatory lending,
domestic violence, youth aging out of foster care, AIDS housing,
prison release, and others.
The financing needed to launch Brining
Our Community Home will be immediately solicited and
secured from private resources. In the first year a feasibility
study of the ability of mainstream and homeless service systems
to redirect existing resources and housing units to help newly
housed households maintain their stability and continuity of care
will be conducted. As a result, existing support service capacity
will be combined with existing housing stock to establish evidence-based
supportive housing models that maximize public and private investments
and cost-effectively assure long-term housing options for formerly
homeless persons.
Chronically homeless utilize many
publicly supported systems. To optimally focus our scarce resources
to solve, rather than manage, their need it is critical to gain
a comprehensive understanding of our system of care. The person
or team tasked with developing the funding for Bringing
Our Community Home will map the chief mainstream service
systems. As a result we will be able to identify where and how
funds flow, review current eligibility and entry points, discover
what works and does not work for homeless people in each system,
get to know the key policymakers and administrators, and begin
negotiations with at least two systems to better serve homeless
people. The some key mainstream systems with which we will work
are:
- Income support programs such as Supplemental
Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
(TANF), and other supplements, such as Food Stamps
- Medicaid—and other health services—including
federally supported community health centers and health assistance
through the Veteran’s Health Administration
- Mental health and substance abuse services funded
through various federal block grant programs to Washington State
and distributed through the Regional Support Network
- Workforce Investment Act (WIA) programs designed
to provide training and secure employment for low-income, homeless,
and disabled workers
- Housing subsidy programs, such as the federally
funded Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8), HOME Investment Partnership,
McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance, Housing Opportunities for
Persons with AIDS (HOPWA), and public housing authority programs
- Other public systems, including public schools,
child protective services, foster care, county jails, and state
prisons
We intend to secure commitments from the leaders of mainstream
service systems — including public health, mental health,
alcohol & drug addiction treatment, foster care, and criminal
justice — to do the following:
- Conduct an analysis of current investments
in services for people who experience homelessness in SBCR and
create a plan for shifting resources, over time, from costly
institutional supports to prevention services
- Partner with community-based providers to plan
for and offer by 2011 the housing and service options needed
to end the practice of discharging clients into homelessness
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