(2007-2011)
Paving a New Path
In 2007, the community in Santa Clara County was grappling with an increase in homelessness, brought on by decades of failed housing policies, high cost of living, minimal support services, and racial inequality. Around 7,200 residents were experiencing homelessness on any given night, disproportionately people of color. Tens of thousands more were at risk of homelessness, residing in unstable living conditions and/or experiencing severe rent burdens.
At the same time, the countywide response to homelessness was fragmented. The County of Santa Clara and City of San Jose each had different plans for addressing homelessness and varying resources to tackle the issue. Nonprofit service providers battled a scarcity of funding and often did not have the resources to prioritize chronically homeless populations. Ultimately, no entity was responsible for stemming the growing tide of homelessness.
Blue Ribbon Commission
Recognizing the need for a unified plan to end homelessness, rather than merely manage it, then Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage and then San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed launched a Blue Ribbon Commission in 2007. Over the course of a year, the 25-member commission — comprising stakeholders from government, nonprofit, and private sector organizations — developed recommendations to establish a more unified, countywide approach. The commission’s final report outlined several key strategies (see below), the most important of which was to shift to a the Housing FirstThe Housing First approach prioritizes providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, thus ending their homelessness and serving as a platform from which they can pursue personal goals and improve their quality of life. This approach is guided by the belief that people need basic necessities like food and a place to live before attending to anything less critical, such as getting a job, budgeting properly, or attending to substance use issues. The Housing First approach has been validated by numerous rigorous studies — with evidence indicating that, compared to a “treatment first” model, it leads to greater long-term housing stability. approach.
7 Strategies Recommended by Blue Ribbon Commission
- Improve access to services by creating outreach and benefit teams to establish a consistent street presence, build trust with homeless individuals, and connect them with ongoing services and housing.
- Establish better institutional outreach and discharge planning to ensure housing and case management services are immediately initiated for individuals discharged from institutions, such as healthcare, corrections, or foster care facilities.
- Implement a medical respite facility to provide homeless individuals recovering from illness or injury with a safe place to recuperate while also linking them to services and permanent housing.
- Create a “one-stop” homelessness prevention center that offers comprehensive support in one location and directly links services with permanent supportive housingA type of housing unit or program that combines affordable housing with support services (for example, mental health, employment, or peer support services) that has proven successful in helping homeless individuals become and stay housed. Supportive housing programs can come in many forms, including long-term programs (i.e., Permanent Supportive Housing) and shorter-term support (i.e., Rapid Rehousing)..
- Shift to Housing First approach, focused on prioritizing rapid placement in permanent housing as the most cost-effective and successful strategy.
- Develop new and increase existing sources of funding for 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. production and ensure production of diverse housing types with this funding.
- Advocate and implement a series of land use policies that allow for increasing the production of both affordable and market-rate housing.
Developing a New Collective Impact Model
The Blue Ribbon Commission also committed to building a regional governance structure to implement these strategies, and Destination: Home was established as a public-private partnership to serve as the backbone of a new countywide approach. And with a mandate to build a 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. model aimed at ending homelessness in the region, Destination: Home began to convene and unite a wide array of stakeholders – including the County of Santa Clara, City of San Jose and other cities throughout the region, the Santa Clara County Housing Authority, nonprofit service providers, and housing developers – into this new collective impact model (which is referred to as “the coalition” throughout this piece)
Groups Represented
in Our Collective
Impact Model
Local
Government
Agencies
Develop community wide strategies for addressing homelessness and provide public funding and safety-net services to support these strategies.
Housing
Developers
Build and operate supportive and affordable housing
Nonprofit
Service
Providers
Deliver a wide range of programs in support of homeless and at-risk individuals (e.g., providing case management, operating shelter sites, and conducting outreach)
People with
Lived
Experience
Leverage firsthand experiences with homelessness to co-design, implement, and provide feedback on various elements of our homelessness response and advocate for system improvements
Businesses &
Corporations
Provide flexible private funding to support homelessness initiatives; help get other businesses and corporations more proximate to the issue
Philanthropic
Organizations
Provides flexible private funding to support homelessness initiatives
Elected
Officials
Adopt policies to help end and prevent homelessness, and approve government budgets, homelessness proposals and new housing developments
Other Community
Groups &
Members
Support community efforts by learning about/educating others, volunteering time/money in support of nonprofits and speaking up in support of housing and homelessness strategies when they come before an elected body for a vote.
State & Federal
Government
Partners
Adopt policies, and provides critical funding to local jurisdictions and other partners, that are key to ending homelessness
Lead Entities of This Coalition
Coordinates the countywide homelessness response system (and serves as lead agency of the Continuum of Care); manages the Homeless Management Information System; provides funding for new housing development and a wide variety of other homelessness initiatives; and helps deliver some direct services
Controls city zoning and land use approvals, and provides funding for new affordable housing development and a wide range of other homelessness services in the largest city in the county
Administers and allocates federal housing vouchers (including Project Based Vouchers, which provide the ongoing operating funds for supportive and affordable housing) and develops and owns affordable housing throughout the county
Serves as the backbone organization for the collective impact model; convenes and mobilizes stakeholders around the Community Plan; raises and deploys philanthropic funding to support the coalition’s efforts and help fill key system gaps
With a core group of key partners agreeing to join hands, and additional stakeholders slowly but steadily coming to the table, this coalition would form the foundation for the community’s burgeoning efforts to end homelessness in Santa Clara County.
Defining Collective Impact
Collective impact was defined by authors John Kania and Mark Kramer in a 2011 Stanford Social Innovation Review article as “the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem”— a concept that heavily informed the structure of this coalition in Silicon Valley.
Collective impact models are distinct from other collaborations and partnerships, and require five key elements:
- A common agenda, which includes a shared vision and understanding of the problem, as well as mutually agreed upon solutions;
- Shared measurement systems to collect data and evaluate results;
- Mutually reinforcing activities that align with each entity’s unique area of expertise;
- Continuous communication to develop and maintain trust, as well as enable problem solving; and
- A backbone organization to plan, manage, and support the collective project.
Practitioners have since added to the collective impact definition—in particular, developing strategies to center equity in collective impact strategies.