Housing First!

I love election season, so full of promise!

Check out the email Mayor Soglin sent out to the alders yesterday!

From: Soglin, Paul
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 3:38 PM
To: All Alders; PL GROUP
Cc: Rottman, Monica
Subject: FW: Housing First

Attached are two documents prepared by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homlessness, dated May 29, 2014.

I have asked city staff to draft a resolution committing us to the concept of Housing First and the implementation of action steps needed to achieve zero homelessness.

It is my hope that all of our partners who address the challenges of homelessness will endorse Housing First.

When drafted, we will circulate the resolution for sponsorship.

Hallelujah!

Attached is this email:

From: Beverley Ebersold [mailto:Beverley.Ebersold@usich.gov]
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2014 11:16 AM
To: Soglin, Paul
Subject: RE: Housing First

Hello Mayor Soglin,

Thanks for reaching out! Housing First is identified as a core strategy for ending homelessness in Opening Doors: the Federal Strategic Plan to End Homelessness Identified as an Evidence-Based Practice within the USICH Solutions database, which provides 56 programmatic examples. As a quick response, I have attached the USICH Housing First Checklist which looks at HF at the program level and community level. Also including a presentation from our Policy Director, as well as a link to a recent blog he did on HF that identifies a few additional resources. http://usich.gov/blog/housing-first-how-evidence-drives-solutions-to-homelessness

Please let me know if these resources are helpful, happy to identify others for you and/or have a conversation to advance efforts in Madison.

Best,
Bev

Hallelujah!

Whew! Finally! (First tried n 1988 and 1992, study from 2007) We’re a bit behind the rest of the world, but I’m glad we are finally here! There is an entire campaign (100,000 Homes) several cities have engaged in with great results that I have blogged about and testified about before, several times. Maybe we can finally have a 100,000 homes campaign here!

A word of caution about our existing Housing First programs that allegedly exist here. Apparently they never read the checklist. I don’t believe they are true Housing First programs and the agencies running the programs haven’t truly embraced the concepts in that checklist. United Way trumpets that they do this for families through the Salvation Army, YWCA and The Road Home. I’m sure those programs may have some elements of Housing First and they do really good work, but they are not true Housing First programs. Porchlight also has a small program, but I don’t know much about it.

Anyways, HOUSING FIRST, YES!

Yesterday, please!