Recruit Partners & Make Deals

Initiate and collaborate through strategic partnerships among funders, local policymakers, business leaders, and government, as well as advocacy, housing and service providers.

EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS:

Denver’s Road Home

Denver’s Road Home is a prime example of the success that collaborations can have. Three years into their community supported 10 year plan to end homelessness there are a number of encouraging results:

• 1,243 new units of housing for the homeless have been created
• 957 families have received eviction assistance
• 3,278 homeless people have received employment assistance

In the first two years of the collaboration Denver saw:

• a 11% reduction in overall homelessness
• a 36% decrease in chronic homelessness
• panhandling on the 16th Street Mall has dropped by 92 percent (Hickenlooper, 2009)

Heading Home Minnesota

Heading Home Minnesota is a statewide collaboration to end homelessness chaired by several foundation (and Funders Together) members. Results this public private collaboration has achieved to date include:

• In the first year 70 individuals were housed and the police reported a 14% reduction in arrests of the homeless in the downtown area.
• 32 of the top 50 users of our jail and shelter system were housed.
• 80% have maintained their housing,
• 90% have not returned to shelter,
• 56% have not reoffended.
• In the first two years 1,100 new housing opportunities were created ( Broeke, 2009

Additional Examples

See our list of Funder Networks Collaborating to Prevent and End Homelessness.