The Continuum of Care’s Homelessness Planning Council (HPC) adopted a newly updated three-year Strategic Plan at its September meeting.
The Strategic Plan outlines two main goals. The first goal focuses on assessing the current state of homelessness planning, while the second goal aims to “deploy all available resources to end homelessness in the future” in a collaborative manner.
Goal 1: URGENT AND RESPONSIVE: Recognizing the urgency, Nashville will employ evidence-based, data-driven decisions to serve and empower individuals experiencing homelessness.
Goal 2: ALIGNED & ACCOUNTABLE: The Housing Crisis Resolution System (HCRS) will align resources that close the resource gap and have clear lines of accountability.
Each goal lists four objectives.
- Objective 1.1: Reexamine and strengthen collaborative infrastructure and roles played by key stakeholders, including individuals with lived experience, governance, committees and members.
- Objective 1.2.: Identify inventory.
- Objective 1.3.: Outline a plan to improve data collection, analysis and presentation for all populations.
- Objective 1.4: Establish effective goals and metrics to report on strategic homelessness initiatives.
- Objective 2.1: Mobilize community partners and maximize funding to serve all populations.
- Objective 2.2: Work towards ending all homelessness.
- Objective 2.3: Maximize community wide HMIS data collection, sharing and use.
- Objective 2.4: Develop an ongoing, robust, and transparent communications strategy to advance collaborative efforts to end homelessness.
Among the positive parts of this plan is the focus on integrating people with lived experiences and doing so by providing dedicated staff support. I believe the Office of Homeless Services, which is now directly responding to the HPC, is well-equipped to provide solid staff support without taking over the conversation.
Most strategic plans tend to be a little lofty when written by a community group. But overall, I think the CoC Strategic Planning Committee did a better job this time around (compared to last year’s effort) and has clearly aligned the plan with “All In,” the federal strategic plan to end homelessness. I must say, I personally was thrilled to see the reference to implementing a “targeted universalism” approach, a topic I addressed in an earlier column.
The vision currently states that, “the CoC is tasked with building and maintaining an effective Housing Crisis Resolution System to prevent and end homelessness for all Nashvillians.”
To me visions outline an ideal state that a community or organization strives to achieve, which I don’t find in this wording. Rather it is describing a task, not outlining a vision. Having said that, there was ample time for me or any community member to provide feedback to the CoC’s Strategic Planning Committee. The CoC generally does a great job allowing for public input. While I did send in my feedback, I simply missed submitting my concerns about the formulation of the vision statement.
Let’s move on. “The mission of the CoC is to create a collaborative, inclusive, community-based/inspired process and approach to planning and managing effective homeless assistance resources and programs (by which Federal, State and local funding resources will be actualized to adequately fund all homeless assistance needs) to end homelessness in our community, consistent with 24 CFR Part 578, the HUD regulations that guide the CoC program.”
The Strategic Plan also explains in detail CoC’s values, which can be summed up as housing-focused, person-centered, data-driven, committed to the effective use of resources and race-equity focused.
While I would have liked to see some specific goals included based on data evaluation as part of the strategic planning process, that did not seem to have happened. What I am talking about is that All In, the federal strategic plan, set a goal to reduce homelessness by 25 percent by 2025. That’s a very ambitious goal, and I’m not saying the local CoC should simply adopt it. What I am saying is that we have HMIS and local homelessness data now to set some goals and there was an opportunity for the CoC Strategic Planning Committee to dig a little deeper.
However, I believe the CoC Strategic Planning Committee ultimately may have recognized that because Objective 1.4 clearly calls for setting these types of goals. I personally think there was ample time over the past two years to actually do some analysis and evaluation in coordination with the CoC’s HMIS and Data committees and include some specific goals based on that.
In reading this Strategic Plan, I noticed a few nuances that indicate a lack of experience, but that is expected under new board and staff leadership and can be corrected. I am not too concerned yet because Mayor Freddie O’Connell understands these nuances. Specifically, I am referring to the title page of the strategic plan that makes it sound like the Homelessness Planning Council is a Metro government board. You may question why I home in on a relatively small thing like a title page. On its own, it would not worry me, but coupled with a few other mistakes that I’ve seen published recently by the Office of Homeless Services, it’s worth paying attention.
Let me just state clearly that the Homelessness Planning Council — or HPC — serves as the governing body for the Nashville-Davidson County Continuum of Care. I don’t believe the Office of Homeless Services fully understands that yet because staff released a recent RFP referring to the CoC as the Metro CoC. The official name under the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for our CoC is “Nashville-Davidson County Continuum of Care.” Therefore, changing the CoC name to indicate it’s a Metro entity is significant and is a big “no, no” for me, as it sends a strong message of a top-down Metro hierarchy, which has the potential of undermining true community collaboration.
Furthermore, when I was searching for the final Strategic Plan on the HPC website, I came across the following information: “The Office of Homeless Services was voted by the Continuum of Care voting body to serve as the System Lead in May 2018, and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and local government approved the transfer in November 2018.
“The System Lead is responsible for managing the system for the Continuum of Care’s geographic area, in accordance with the requirements of the Program Interim Rule and any requirements prescribed by Housing and Urban Development.”
Actually, the CoC voted for Metro Social Services to become the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) Lead agency, which is different from a vote to make Metro a systems lead. That type of misinformation is a red flag.
However, the reality is that the new Office of Homeless Services is likely to become the CoC Collaborative Applicant*, a move that I support, and with that it would de facto become the overall backbone organization to serve on behalf of the CoC and under the HPC as the systems lead.
Nuances matter because they show expertise and experience, and they are important to build trust.
Truth be told, I have high expectations of Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s administration because he understands the role of the CoC and that the HPC was created as a community board, not a mere, status-quo Metro board controlled by department staff or the administration.
Furthermore, I believe wholeheartedly that O’Connell, who led the creation of the Office of Homeless Services as a councilmember, understands the importance of Housing First and what it means to truly implement a Housing First-oriented systems approach. The key to implementing Housing First is to line up permanent housing units and utilize temporary housing as part of a Housing First-oriented system as an option for people who choose time to adjust and get their paperwork in order before moving to permanent housing. And don’t forget, Housing First includes having the right supportive services in place and being able to offer an individualized service approach.
With leadership strengthened, the likelihood of the Office of Homeless Services to become the Collaborative Applicant and the CoC systems lead in the next few months, Nashville is poised to connect the dots, restore trust, and move forward with a true person-centered approach that’s focused on serving people in dire need. All we need is solid leadership.
*Per the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), “The Collaborative Applicant is the eligible applicant designated by the Continuum of Care (CoC) to collect and submit the CoC Registration, CoC Consolidated Application (which includes the CoC Application and CoC Priority Listing), and apply for CoC planning funds on behalf of the CoC during the CoC Program Competition. The CoC may assign additional responsibilities to the Collaborative Applicant so long as these responsibilities are documented in the CoC’s governance charter.”