Blog: Homelessness Ends Here

From today’s Philanthropy News Digest alert:

The Chicago Community Trust and the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness have announced the launch of a two-year study to gauge progress in the city’s plan to end homelessness.

Initiated in January 2003 by a broad coalition of public and private partners, Chicago’s plan transformed the city’s homeless system from one that manages homelessness to one that works to end homelessness by moving people quickly into permanent housing. Since the plan’s inception, its main strategies — preventing individuals and families from becoming homeless in the first place; placing individuals and families in permanent housing as quickly as possible when they do become homeless; and providing wraparound services when appropriate to promote housing stability and self-sufficiency — have attracted more than $76 million in funding.

Funded by Chicago Community Trust, the Michael Reese Health Trust, the Polk Bros. and McCormick foundations, and the City of Chicago, the evaluation will be led by homeless policy experts at the University of Chicago and Loyola University Chicago, in conjunction with the Chicago Alliance. Researchers will follow six hundred people as they navigate the city’s homeless system and study what happens to them over the course of a year, while interviewing clients and conducting focus groups to document, from the client perspective, how well the current homeless system meets their needs. In addition, they will create a service inventory to track how homeless services have changed since the plan’s implementation and conduct a comprehensive survey of homeless service agencies to identify successes in implementing best practice models and services gaps.

“The plan to end homelessness holds the promise of a major breakthrough in the way we work together to ensure that everyone has permanent housing,” said Chicago Community Trust president and CEO Terry Mazany. “In these trying economic times when resources are scarce, it is especially important to evaluate and strengthen Chicago’s plan to help more people move from homelessness into stable and productive lives.”

“New Study to Evaluate Chicago’s Plan to End Homelessness.” Chicago Community Trust Press Release 7/08/09.