Creative Ideas for Accelerating Unsheltered Housing Placements

Want to focus your community energy on ending unsheltered homelessness for young folks?

Check out these creative ideas for system improvements and places to start!

Getting Started:

• Sit down as a team and spend an hour or two getting curious about your full unsheltered By-Name list. Think about:

  • What do you know about these young people? 

  • What is their demographic information telling you? 

  • What common themes are you noticing? 

  • What project/project types are young people engaged with (Outreach, CE, Drop-in, etc)

  • What are the common exit destinations for unsheltered YYA?

  • Identify 3-5 key changes you want to test that you think would make a key impact for these young people

• Identify where Office of Homeless Youth flexibility would help you house more unsheltered young people. Call up your contract monitor and see if you can test any of them for this month!

• Housed by the Holidays Specific: Make sure every direct service provider has the Jotform link to log their unsheltered housing placements! (including partners for other populations - if they house an unsheltered young person, it still counts!)

Talking to Young People:

• Reach out to the young people on the unsheltered list to make contact, explore diversion, AND ask what they think is getting in their way when it comes to getting housed through the system - what would they change, if they could?

• Hold a focus group of young people that are or have experienced unsheltered homelessness (or see if the YAB wants to!) - look at the Reducing Unsheltered part of our Big Goal, Small Question resource to target your questions for idea-generation!

• Always wanted to try Peer Outreach? Use your ACI Stipend funds to pay interested young people to get trained and go on Outreach with your teams for this month!

Actualizing a Diversion First System:

• Set a community goal for how quickly you want everyone encountering your system to have a diversion conversation, and identify what it would take to get there.

• Commit to doing a diversion conversation with every unsheltered young person on your unsheltered list during the challenge (Remember, you can do diversion conversations over the phone!)

• Share the HPDF Eligibility flyer with your entire staff right now!

• Running low on HPDF funds? Can your community move some of your underspend Street Outreach Services grant to the HPDF pot?

Case Conferencing:

• For the duration of the Challenge, focus on your unsheltered list in Case Conferencing meetings

• Consider more frequent Case Conferencing meetings to ensure action items are being carried out and barriers are being addressed quickly

• Add a column to your tracking spreadsheet ‘Date of Last Diversion Conversation’ 

Removing Barriers to Housing Programs:

• What ID documentation is absolutely necessary? Try relaxing those requirements!

• Remember that HPDF has no cap! Look outside of the city for a housing opportunity and pair that with getting a cheap car for a young person to continue getting to work, offer to pay a double deposit or 2 months of rent up front

• Ask leadership at your housing provider agencies to commit to testing changes just for the duration of this Challenge

• Use agency case-consulting meetings to strategize around upcoming openings in your housing programs 

• Know where every unsheltered young person stands on housing waitlists

• Talk to your housing teams about which programs have capacity and leverage each one to house as many unsheltered young people as possible

• Eligibility changed this year for the Independent Youth Housing Program– young people who have spent any time in foster care prior to age 18 are now eligible, as are young people enrolled in Extended Foster Care. 

Street Outreach/Shelter:

• Don’t have enough staff to pair up on street outreach? Try partnering with an outreach team working with another population to stretch your staffing further.

• Ask your street outreach teams to test offering immediate diversion conversations and/or CE Assessments with YYA while on their route

• Remember that diversion is an allowable expense for the OHY Street Outreach Services grant.

• Ask providers to regularly review the unsheltered list and commit to making contact with each young person every week

• Ask your local youth/young adult shelter to take the Inclusion Criteria Tool and test out 2-3 change ideas based on what they learn.