Beth Stone
A little bit of this, A little bit of that
- March 20, 2009 • 9:16 pm PDT
- + responses
Last night I had the opportunity and pleasure to meet Rosanne and Beth from Common Ground, which is currently extending Project 50 to Project 500. Their Los Angeles initiative focuses on identifying vulnerability variables for the homeless population in the city. Starting with Skid Row they interviewed 350 homeless individuals and provided 50 with homes by way of city capital and county services. This plan, with proven success in cities such as New York and Denver, is on schedule to reduce homelessness on Skid Row by 2/3rds within 5 years. The essential insight they identified is connecting housing with services - providing a home verses a continual cycle of in and out care.
The base of their process:
Form a relationship: They began by compiling a registry to "strip anonymity" from the homeless population. Put simply: meet the people, know their names, understand their circumstance and needs. (A useful binary of this process is identifying and forming relationships with feeders such as hospitals, jails, and prisons.)
Develop a housing plan: Common Ground works with a variety of government, nonprofit and foundations to provide place, social services, and funding. From a mayoral level budget overview, it becomes evident that the dollars spent on continuing social services out-cost providing a home after a year's time. (A blaring example is found in Beverly Hills, where the city spends $3 million a year on its 60 or so homeless residents).
Targeting existing resources: Meaning a shared understanding of success metrics from all stake holders -- having "x" done (hotel renovated for apartment housing) for "y" result (240 individuals off the streets with weekly social service visits).
Until now, the program's success has been rooted in the dedication of these purpose driven individuals. Their ultimate question is then, "how do you get a community to own its homeless population?"
The question of community ownership relates to us all. While we want to be a part of something greater - to make things better - we often need validation through identifying our individual and collective contributions. So how do we create a structure and/or context for a common purpose? One in which we can begin to identify and measure our efforts toward a shared definition of success? If we all want to make the world a "better place" how do we identify the critical variables to identify core problems and successful solutions?
One place to start, may be to list the key components of our interconnectivity as a global society.
So far, I've started with the rudiments:
Food
Water
Shelter
Social connection
Physical planet
Exchange
Please add!
The base of their process:
Form a relationship: They began by compiling a registry to "strip anonymity" from the homeless population. Put simply: meet the people, know their names, understand their circumstance and needs. (A useful binary of this process is identifying and forming relationships with feeders such as hospitals, jails, and prisons.)
Develop a housing plan: Common Ground works with a variety of government, nonprofit and foundations to provide place, social services, and funding. From a mayoral level budget overview, it becomes evident that the dollars spent on continuing social services out-cost providing a home after a year's time. (A blaring example is found in Beverly Hills, where the city spends $3 million a year on its 60 or so homeless residents).
Targeting existing resources: Meaning a shared understanding of success metrics from all stake holders -- having "x" done (hotel renovated for apartment housing) for "y" result (240 individuals off the streets with weekly social service visits).
Until now, the program's success has been rooted in the dedication of these purpose driven individuals. Their ultimate question is then, "how do you get a community to own its homeless population?"
The question of community ownership relates to us all. While we want to be a part of something greater - to make things better - we often need validation through identifying our individual and collective contributions. So how do we create a structure and/or context for a common purpose? One in which we can begin to identify and measure our efforts toward a shared definition of success? If we all want to make the world a "better place" how do we identify the critical variables to identify core problems and successful solutions?
One place to start, may be to list the key components of our interconnectivity as a global society.
So far, I've started with the rudiments:
Food
Water
Shelter
Social connection
Physical planet
Exchange
Please add!
