100 Percent of Phoenix Veterans Housed Success Breeds Success Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness 100 Percent of Phoenix Veterans Housed by Matt Schur Phoenix project succeeds in ending chronic homelessness among local veteransPM NetworkJune 2014 For decades, many programs to assist homeless people in the United States had prerequisites such as sobriety or successful living in transitional shelters prior to the homeless acquiring permanent housing. One multiyear project turned that model around. Rather than treating housing as a final reward, Project H3 Vets made it the first step. Its objective was to make Phoenix, Arizona the first U.S. city to eliminate chronic homelessness among its military veterans. On any night in the United States, more than 600,000 people experience homelessness—which would place that population as one of the country’s 25 most populous cities. The chronically homeless—those who have a disabling condition and have lived without housing for at least one year or at least four times in the past three years—comprise around 10 percent of the entire homeless population but consume 50 percent of the system’s resources. “The people that have been homeless a long time, they’re not going to get into housing if you don’t use the housing-first model,” says Shane Groen, Project H3 Vets project manager and special initiatives director at the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness. “We have to reach out to them, get them out of their environment that’s so harmful and address the issues after the fact.” The housing-ready prerequisite model is not only less effective at improving homeless people’s health, but it’s also costlier, according to Pathways to Housing, a not-for-profit that spearheaded the housingfirst model. Providing housing from the outset costs a city government US$57 per night. Compare that to the nightly price tag of other places where homeless people often end up: US$73 for a public shelter, US$164 for jail, US$519 for an emergency room and US$1,185 for a psychiatric hospital. In late 2011, when Project H3 Vets launched, the team wanted to house 75 chronically homeless veterans— more than the 50 chronically homeless individuals housed by a previous local initiative by project sponsor Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness. The team first needed to know which were the most chronically homeless in the vet population to help determine whom to target first. So via email and social media, it reached out to 175 community volunteers, who, over three days, canvassed the city’s streets and shelters to identify the 75 most chronically homeless veterans. Shortly thereafter, an outreach program called Arizona StandDown put the total at 222—a stretch in scope but not an insurmountable one, Mr. Groen says. “It became this obtainable goal,” he says. “Let’s just get it to zero. Why stop at 75?” Success Breeds Success Still, an expanded scope meant increased costs. “It was a crunch to reach out and see who would step up and support the project on that big of a scale,” Mr. Groen says. To secure additional funding while executing the project, the team would need to demonstrate successes along the way. It set out to determine which of the 222 chronically homeless veterans had the greatest need—and house them first. “Who’s going to die first if they remain on the streets?” Mr. Groen asks. “Who’s been on the streets the longest?” To find the answers, the team used the Vulnerability Index, a commonly used survey tool that assesses the mortality risk of homeless individuals based on criteria such as whether they are 60 or older or have had more than three emergency-room visits in the past three months. The team gathered those criteria along with other information, including each homeless veteran’s name, location and photograph, into a database whose algorithm ranked the people most in need of housing based on vulnerability, time on the street and age. Armed with that data, the project team targeted the homeless veterans according to their database rank and set out to house five of them each week. People don’t want to see exorbitant expenses for a project like this. You want to show people that you can accomplish really great things with not a lot of money. — Shane Groen With each project success came greater visibility—and with that came more funding. Project H3 Vets started out with only a few funders, including the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services, federally backed agency Fannie Mae and the U.S. government, which supplied housing vouchers. After taking to social media, the team began receiving donations from local and state social service programs plus a wide range of community stakeholders, from senior-living facilities to biker groups. The project funds more than tripled from US$732,456 in the first year to US$2.4 million by year three—when four additional major sponsors (Valley of the Sun United Way, Maricopa County IDA, city of Phoenix and Arizona Department of Housing) came on board. “If any one of our key partners decided to pull out, it could be really detrimental,” Mr. Groen says. “You have to have good community buy-in across the board—and having the mayor backing you, getting good press, rallying the community behind it. With community buy-in, it’s so easy to accomplish things.” Retention Bonus Getting veterans into homes is difficult enough; even tougher, says Mr. Groen, is retaining them. “Retention is key, and that’s how you measure outcomes in a project like this,” he says. The team needed to ensure benefits realization, which is inextricably linked to project success, according to PMI’s 2014 Pulse of the Profession®. High-performing organizations—where at least 80 percent of projects meet their original goals and business intent—are nearly eight times more likely to be mature in their benefits realization processes. To help ensure retention after the project, Project H3 Vets worked during the project to foster community buy-in and provide furnished homes. The team also allocated project funds to service providers who supplied the veterans with social support as well as basic needs, independent-living skills and transportation to help them transition to independent living. To bring down the costs of furniture procurement, Mr. Groen negotiated with community organizations. Bridging Arizona, a not-for-profit, provides full sets of furniture for one-bedroom apartments—including a bed, dresser, television stand, table and couch—for just US$95 each. “People don’t want to see exorbitant expenses for a project like this,” Mr. Groen says. “You want to show people that you can accomplish really great things with not a lot of money. It’s possible when people are invested in the project and want to see you succeed.” Succeed it did: In December 2013, Project H3 Vets placed the city’s last chronically homeless veteran in housing—making Phoenix the first U.S. city to eradicate veteran homelessness. Moreover, the project achieved a 94 percent retention rate, compared to a national average retention rate of 85 percent, according to the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness. Housing-first projects are underway elsewhere in the United States, including Salt Lake City, Utah and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as well as France and Japan. With lessons learned from Project H3 Vets, the U.S. federal government aims to end veteran homelessness nationwide by 2015 and homelessness among families and children by 2020. “Using the vulnerability index, targeting accordingly and using housing first: Those have been the big philosophy shifts that have changed the whole game,” Mr. Groen says.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 18:48:16 +0000