Homeless Link

Transatlantic Practice Exchange 2018

This project is delivered by Homeless Link and the National Alliance to End Homelessness, with funding from the Oak Foundation.

The Exchange aims to develop future leaders in the homelessness sector and establish transatlantic good practice connections.

Five participants from the UK will be selected, based on a competitive application process, to spend up to two weeks with a homelessness organisation in the US. During their placement, participants will explore a practice area of interest. Following the placement, participants will produce a report based on their learning to share with colleagues and the sector.

The project is aimed at people in senior project worker and junior manager roles.

Candidates will identify a practice area to explore and a hypothesis to test, and can propose a potential host organisation or location for the placement. If candidates do not have a host organisation in mind, the Alliance will support them to identify a host after shortlisting. Suggested practice areas are listed below, but candidates are also encouraged to research and suggest their own. The Alliance and Homeless Link will shortlist up to ten candidates for further assessment, before choosing the final five UK participants for the 2018 Exchange.

Participants are responsible for planning their trip and will travel independently. Flights, accommodation and daily expenses are funded. Homeless Link and the Alliance will provide support and information throughout the project. Participants will join an online community of current and former participants. They’ll each write a report on their return, as well as finding ways to share and implement their learning.

Candidates should be:

  • Working in homelessness charities (senior project worker/junior manager or equivalent)
  • Supported by their line manager and organisation
  • Motivated, well-organised and reliable
  • Committed to personal development
  • Able to plan their trip, travel to the US and spend up to 2 weeks on placement
  • Able to cover any expenses incurred over and above those funded by the project
  • Committed to writing a report drawing on their learning from the placement
  • Prepared to join networking and events, online and in person

Homeless Link will:

  • Support shortlisted candidates to develop research questions, a hypothesis and learning objectives, and adjust objectives to suit the final host/placement
  • Liaise with the Alliance to arrange a suitable placement
  • Provide a grant to pay for travel, accommodation and daily expenses
  • Facilitate networking with other Exchange participants
  • Support participants to write reports and share their learning

Homelessness in the US: A Brief Introduction

Approximately 549,928 people are homeless in the US on a given day. In a year, about 1.5 million people experience homelessness. These are people who are unsheltered or living in places not meant for human habitation, and those who live in emergency shelters and transitional housing. Not included are those who are doubled up in housing, although they are counted as homeless by some federal programs, states and localities.

The majority of people experiencing homelessness are individuals (65%), the remaining 35% of people experiencing homelessness do as part of a family. About 77,000 people are chronically homeless (homeless over a long period of time or repeatedly, and disabled). Two-thirds live on the streets or in places not meant for human habitation. The number of youth who are homeless is not well understood, but it is estimated that 80,000 have a serious homelessness problem every year (this number is not included in the totals above).

Homelessness in the US is largely driven by the mismatch between incomes and the cost of housing. For most people who are poor, there is no entitlement to income assistance or housing assistance. People with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to poverty and homelessness. Accommodation for homeless people consists of short term shelter (largely for individuals); transitional housing (two-year housing enriched with services); and permanent housing (access to market or social housing, and permanent supportive housing for people with disabilities). A variety of services are also provided to help with accessing public benefits, attaching to the labor market, addressing trauma, receiving treatment for disabilities, etc.

Homeless assistance is delivered almost entirely by non-governmental organizations. They are supported by significant federal funding (the largest source is the US Department of Housing and Urban Development), which has a major influence on local program and systems approaches. State and local governments and philanthropy complete the funding picture. There is a focus on data and coordination, and increasingly a move to pull local programs together into comprehensive systems that can more efficiently reduce homelessness.

Since 2010, homelessness in the U.S. has declined by 14%. Some of this success can be attributed to a focus on placing chronically homeless individuals in permanent supportive housing using a Housing First approach; a switch away from long-term transitional housing for families and toward rapid re-housing; and setting numerical goals to end homelessness. Progress toward these goals has created considerable public and political will to solve the problem nationally and locally.

Topic guide 2018

This guide outlines the topics that you can apply to study during a placement in the 2018 Exchange.

Applicants must work for a homelessness charity in a senior support worker/junior manager or equivalent role, and have the support of their organisation, both to take part in the Exchange and to participate in subsequent networks and dissemination activity.

Please note that your proposal must include dissemination and, where possible, plans for practical implementation alongside the research element.

Don’t worry if you don’t have an academic or research background – we’ll support participants to finalisequestions and to structure and edit their reports. Your commitment to improving homelessness services is the most important thing!

To apply you’ll need to:

  • Outline the hypothesis/research questions that you want to explore during the placement – be realistic about what you can achieve in two weeks
  • Include details of a potential host organisation – only required if you are proposing your own topic
  • Confirm the support that your organisation is offering – you must have management support to participate in both the placement and subsequent dissemination
  • Explain how you will share/implement learning on your return
  • Explain how your learning could change responses to homelessness locally and nationally

You’ll also be asked to tell us a bit about your career in homelessness and the client group(s) you work with.

We’re keen to see applications from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as from England.

Applications will be assessed in late December/early January. Shortlisted applicants will be contacted in January for the final assessment stage, with visits taking place between March and June 2018.

Applications close at 9am on Tuesday 19thDecember. You are advised to download the application questions and prepare/proof your application in Word before submitting online, as you cannot export from the online survey.

Project page and application questions:

Link to the online application:

Please note that each participant is matched with a host individually – there is no requirement for participants’ organisations to accept a US placement.

Programme topics for UK participants

1. Propose a topic of your choosing

We welcome proposals based on applicants’ own research and areas of interest. For example, in past years Jo Prestidge and Steph Ratcliffe have successfully proposed original topics. Please include details at least one potential host that you have been in touch with during your research.

2. Multi-disciplinary Outreach Teams

One of the biggest challenges in addressing unsheltered homelessness in the US is creating effective outreach operations to identify, make contact with, and connect people experiencing homelessness with the services they need to get off the streets, access permanent housing, and move towards stability.

Traditionally, distinct outreach teams may have been present in a community for connecting people to homelessness services, addressing primary healthcare, or addressing behavioral health. Multi-disciplinary outreach teams, however, seek not only to connect people to needed services but to engage and stabilize the most vulnerable people living on the street by providing more holistic services to address present needs. Team composition may vary based on funding or primary agency but can include coordination of specialists from fields such as healthcare, substance abuse, psychiatry, law enforcement, and homeless services.

Examples and reading:

  • Austin, TXOutreach Team Briefing
  • San Antonio HOPE Team

Applicants interested in this topic might explore research questions such as:

  • How are multi-disciplinary outreach teams incorporated into a community’s coordinated entry system (especially when housed in or funded by a particular agency) and/or what are the barriers to doing so?
  • What are effective practices and/or challenges in: integrated funding; team composition, retention, and coordination; safety; transition from outreach to housing; and/or tracking and evaluating outcomes?
  • How do US multi-disciplinary outreach teams compare with UK outreach models, especially considering access to healthcare for people sleeping rough?

3. Permanent Supportive Housing: differences between scattered site and single site

Throughout the United States, Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) has been shown to be a cost-effective solution to homelessness for people who have some of the highest barriers to securing housing on their own, by pairing affordable housing units with wrap-around services to help people remain stably housed in the long term. It has been shown to be particularly effective in resolving homelessness for people who are chronically homeless, and those who have severe health, mental health or substance abuse disorders by improving health and economic outcomes for the individual, and reducing public costs from other emergency services.

Federal funding for PSH is used for a mix of voucher-based units, in which a client obtains housing in the community and with a private landlord (called ‘tenant-based’ or ‘scattered site’), or in single-site buildings that are leased or sub-leased to people experiencing homelessness (depending on the whether the grant recipient owns or is leasing the property). The distinction is similar to that seen in the larger federal subsidized housing programs (but without services) of Housing Choice Vouchers for scattered site and Public Housing for single-site. Clients living in scattered site versus single-site units, and also agencies administering the program, face distinct advantages and challenges under the two models.

Examples and reading:

  • Corporation for Supportive HousingToolkit
  • Corporation for Supportive Housing Supportive Housing Primer
  • USICH Supportive Housing Resource Webpage

Applicants interested in this topic might explore research questions such as:

  • In an agency or a system containing both scattered and single-site options, how are options presented to encourage client choice? What patterns are seen in who prefers single-site vs scattered (e.g. youth)?
  • In a community (or among an agency’s units), how does location quality differ between single-site units and the locations clients have found in the community via scattered-site vouchers?
  • What are some of the practical implications of the two approaches e.g. cost savings, outcome benefits, staffing and programmatic distinctions between implementing single-site and scattered site PSH?
  • What is the learning for Housing First in England?

4. Hospice Care, Respite Care, and Hospital Systems Collaboration

Hospital and healthcare systems have long been an important partner in the fight to end homelessness in the United States. Access to healthcare is an important factor in regaining and maintaining housing stability, and the health services are particularly key to ending chronic homelessness for people living with severe health, mental health and substance abuse issues.

While great success has been found in ending homelessness and reducing costs for communities when hospital and healthcare systems are engaged, people with the most severe health complications, and those who are terminally ill present additional challenges that require more intensive collaboration. Those who have been most successful have seen outreach teams, emergency shelters, permanent supportive housing providers, and other social service agencies work closely with the area’s hospitals and hospice workers to coordinate care and services for the most vulnerable and high need members of the community.

Examples and reading:

  • National Healthcare for the Homeless Council End of Life Care Report
  • National Healthcare for the Homeless Council Respite Care Toolkit
  • University of Illinois High Need Briefing

Applicants interested in this topic might explore research questions such as:

  • What different challenges face hospice residents coming from homelessness (or with a history of homelessness) compared to non-formerly-homeless residents, and how might service needs be different?
  • How can hospices for people who have experienced homelessness be incorporated effectively with coordinated entry system vulnerability and prioritization processes (i.e. pathways from rough sleeping to housing); or under what criteria and at what point can people in housing programs such as PSH be identified as priority for moving to hospice?
  • What aging or end-of-life service implications are important for providers of street outreach or PSH projects to understand?
  • What can UK services learn from the US about end of life care and homelessness?

5. Working with Domestic Violence Survivors

One of the most important factors in ensuring homelessness interventions are successful is to best match the services provided to the specific need of the individuals being served. For those fleeing domestic violence, and survivors of domestic violence, the homeless services system in the United States can often be a place to turn in search of safety and stability.

Although survivors of domestic violence are often eligible for homelessness services programs, coordination between broader domestic violence response systems and homeless services systems can be challenging, such as (but not only) due to restrictions on data sharing, unpreparedness by some homeless services agencies to address the needs of survivors, questions of prioritization and vulnerability assessment in coordinated entry systems. Furthermore, strong, broader coordination with other systems such as law enforcement, public housing authorities, and child welfare is important.

Examples and reading:

  • National Alliance to End Homelessness Brief
  • Washington State Coalition Report
  • District Alliance for Safe Housing Toolkit

Applicants interested in this topic might explore research questions such as:

  • What different challenges do service providers face working specifically with domestic violence survivors, and how do their services differ from mainstream homelessness services?
  • How can a community effectively incorporate the needs of domestic violence survivors and the service providers working with them into their homelessness services system?

6. Engaging School Liaisons

When addressing youth homelessness in a community, one of the most important partners in the US is the school system. A provision in the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (the United States’ primary legislative response to homelessness) requires local school districts to identify homeless children and youth, and link them to supportive services.

School districts have dedicated staff, known as homeless education liaisons, which are responsible for ensuring the identification, enrolment, and educational opportunities for children and youth experiencing homelessness. While their primary responsibility is to assist in the educational success of the student, they can play an important role in ensuring that both the student and the family receive a wide range of services that can help stabilize the family and set the student up for future success.

Examples and reading:

  • National Center for Homeless Education Liaison Toolkit
  • National Center for Homeless Education Liaison Issue Brief

Applicants interested in this topic might explore research questions such as:

  • How do the Continuums of Care involve and coordinate with school liaisons (or vice versa), including with coordinated entry systems, and overcome differences in definitions, data collection systems, and/or prioritization?
  • How do, or can, homeless liaisons measure, track, and/or prioritize the relative instability of youth experiencing homelessness in different contexts: unsheltered, sheltered, or (under their definition) living doubled up (sofa surfing) in the residence of family or friends? How do these contexts manifest differently in the school enrolment and performance outcomes of the youth, and in the strategies undertaken?
  • What can UK services learn from the US about youth engagement and early intervention in schools?

7. Involving People with Lived Experience

Encouraging meaningful engagement of people with lived experience in local governance can improve how communities design, implement, and oversee homeless system interventions. People with lived experience have a unique perspective about how programs operate and how policy decisions impact people receiving services –without this input, communities may be missing critical information about how to design and improve their system and allocate resources.

Federal Continuum of Care (CoC) Program funding for homelessness services has for years required that grant recipient communities ensure inclusion of at least one homeless or formerly homeless individual on the local planning board and that grant recipient agencies ensure “to the maximum extent” that they are involved in project planning and implementation (see CoCInterim Rule 578.5(b)(2), 578.23(c)(2) and 578.75(e-f)).

People with lived experience are often recruited to provide outreach or supportive services in homelessness assistance programs, but inclusion in high-level planning can require new skills and understanding from both the individual and the agency in order to be impactful and long-lasting. As a result, it can often be a challenge for CoCs to successfully recruit and effectively utilize the voices of people with lived experience in a way that is meaningful to both the Board and the Board member.