Looking Forward

Over the last decade-plus, this coalition has successfully transformed the continuum of care and brought together numerous stakeholders under one umbrella to prevent and end homelessness in the community. Since then, more than 25,000 people have been housed, 7000 new units of permanent affordable housingSubsidized housing where rents are set at a below-market rate based on the tenant’s income. There are many different types of affordable housing — units are typically designated based on a tenant’s income level (i.e., low-income vs. extremely low-income) and certain types of affordable housing may also be reserved for a specific demographic (i.e., seniors or veterans). Deeply affordable housing refers to developments or units where rents are kept particularly low and are intended to serve the lowest-income residents in the community. have been opened or are under construction, and well over $2 billion in local public and private funding has been raised for new housing development.

But this work is far from over. Half of U.S. renters — a record high 22 million — cannot afford their housing costs. More residents will become homeless or housing insecure in the coming years as a result of incomes not keeping pace with rents, systemic racism, and an inadequate social safety net in California and across the country. In order to sustain its collective impactA concept first introduced in the Stanford Social Innovation Review in 2011, collective impact is a framework for deep and sustained collaboration between actors from different sectors to solve a specific social problem. Successful collective impact initiatives include a common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and backbone support organizations., the coalition will need to build on past successes while continuing to innovate new approaches to tackling the systemic challenges that exacerbate homelessness in the community. Priority focus areas for the coalition moving forward include:

Enhancing the Supportive Housing System

A key priority moving forward is to invest in sustaining and improving the existing system by securing continued funding for this work, as well as putting resources into streamlining and modernizing operations to ensure that they are state-of-the-art. With input from people with lived experience, partners are also striving to standardize service delivery across locations. Currently, different service providers may offer a different customer service experience and also have varying levels of understanding when it comes to the needs of distinct homeless populations (e.g., formerly incarcerated or youth). Partners are now trying to correct this by standardizing service delivery, property management standards and operational guidelines across housing developments so that individuals seeking assistance have a consistent experience.

Continuing to Elevate People with Lived Experience

The best solutions to this crisis are informed by people who have personal experience with homelessness. In order to tap into those solutions, leaders who are used to holding power need to step aside and make room for those who have been historically denied access. The coalition has made strides in recent years to center lived experience, especially through LEABsv. Partners are committed to building on this success and holding more space for people with lived experience, including by hiring them to work directly in the system and elevating tenant voices to improve housing developments.

Securing Sustained Funding

Decades of inadequate funding on federal, state, and local levels have resulted in housing and services that consistently don’t meet the full need in the community. Reversing generations of disinvestments will require significant and sustained sources of funding. In addition to building sustained pools of funding for this work, the coalition is exploring new models and policy reforms to address the inefficiencies of the current affordable housing financing system and make it easier to build affordable housing developments more quickly.

Tackling Root Causes

Silicon Valley is an extremely wealthy place plagued by unequal distribution of these riches. In Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, just eight households held more wealth than the bottom 50% (nearly half a million households). Alongside the unaffordable housing supply, this widening inequality puts a huge number of households at risk of homelessness. That’s why the coalition must advance the systems and policy changes that will address the systemic causes of the crisis that continue pushing more people into homelessness.

Changing the Narrative

Too many people, including those in positions of power, continue to misplace blame for the region’s homelessness crisis on personal failings (like mental health or addiction issues) rather than looking at the most obvious answer: the fundamental lack of deeply affordable housing. And rising political rhetoric around homelessness not only drives bad policy solutions, it can even increase community opposition to housing solutions. While the coalition has taken some important steps over the past decade to educate stakeholders throughout the community about homelessness, even more intentional efforts will be needed to re-center the conversation on facts and the solutions that have proven to work.

Sustaining Coalition Resilience

For collective impact to be sustainable over the long term, the system must remain resilient through leadership changes and political shifts. Elected officials sometimes want to focus on “quick fixes”, community views on homelessness fluctuate over time, and other unrelated issues can often complicate this work. Maintaining the strength of the coalition requires active, intentional work, and every partner will need to renew their commitment to sustaining an effective and resilient system.

Ending homelessness is extremely hard work that will take decades – but it can be done. This case study is a blueprint that can be replicated and adapted in other communities looking to build a collective impact model, whether to end homelessness or address another intractable issue. If you’d like to learn more or join us in this effort, please visit www.destinationhomesv.org.