6.7 thomas barnett

Advanced Rapid Re-Housing StrategiesAdvanced Rapid Re-Housing Strategies

National Conference on Ending Homelessness

July 15, 2011

Tom Barnett, Program Manager

thomas.barnett@fairfaxcounty.gov

Fairfax County Office to Prevent and End Homelessness

formerly the

Coordinator of the Fairfax Falls-Church Housing Locator Network

at Good Shepherd Housing and Family Services

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• Demographics

– Over 1M people

– Area Median Income (AMI) for a family of 4 = $103,000 per year

– Over 50k people living in poverty and 1,549 homeless

CONTEXTCONTEXT

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High Rent:

Avg. 1 BR = $1,216

4 BR = $1,783

CHALLENGESCHALLENGES

Low Vacancy:

Avg. 1 BR = 7.1%

4 BR = 0.6%

We were new to rapid re-housing

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Major increase in collaboration and partnership via the creation of a Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness

Political commitment to end homelessness and to create 2,650 new affordable housing opportunities

Arrival of the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program

(HPRP)

STRENGTHSSTRENGTHS

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- Direct financial assistance for prevention and rapid re-housing activities

- Community Case

Management

- Housing Locator Coordination and Support

HPRP AS JUMPSTARTHPRP AS JUMPSTART

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Assessed staff time dedicated to housing search and placement services in FTEs (full-time equivalent)

Created memoranda of understanding MoU between the various organizations providing these services

Saw very little time actually

being dedicated to housing

search and placement

activities

THINKING SYSTEMATICALLYTHINKING SYSTEMATICALLY

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STRATEGYSTRATEGY

Draft 2011-04

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Created webpage

and online forum

Hosted monthly

roundtable

and a

12-week training

BUILDING A COMMUNITYBUILDING A COMMUNITY

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“I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone for their participation on this list serve. I think that this is one of the best, if not THE best, collaborative settings that we have in homeless services.  I consistently get several quick and very helpful responses to requests that I post, and this makes my job so much easier in securing housing for families in need.

Thank you all for being so dedicated to the work!”

A COMMUNITY THAT WORKSA COMMUNITY THAT WORKS

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Solve problems for natural partners, such as…

HOUSING AUTHORITIES / COMMUNITY SERVICES BOARD / TRANSITIONAL HOUSING / PROPERTY OWNERS & MANAGEMENT / FAITH COMMUNITIES

Allow nonprofits to have influence & push innovation

Make the job easier for staff, System as Platform

FINDING GAPS, FINDING GAPS, OPPORTUNITIESOPPORTUNITIES

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• Community requires constant nurturing

• How do we direct more housing location to the front-end of the system, i.e. do more homeless diversion?

• The work is hard, resources scarce

• It is difficult to clearly link capacity building efforts to outcomes. A 14% reduction in the number of homeless people is attributed to many efforts.

STILL WORKING ON ITSTILL WORKING ON IT