Bill and Melinda Tackle Homelessness

by Shannon Moriarty · 2009-03-19 19:55:00 UTC
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The Gates Foundation announced today they will target $60 million towards new initiatives to end family homelessness in the state of Washington over the next decade. Will this injection of cash, combined with a focus on prevention, finally allow a local "end homelessness" plan to succeed where underfunded plans have not?

Here's the story from the Puget Sound Business Journal:

The effort will include several other funders, city and county government, housing authorities, nonprofit groups, private companies and the state, and aims to reduce family homelessness by 50 percent. In all, 24 members of the consortium signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday to redouble their efforts to reduce shelter stays for homeless families with children and improve services so at-risk families can avoid the streets.

The new effort will employ a strategy favored by the Gates Foundation and many other leading funders of using pilot programs to test new approaches for ending homelessness in the King-Snohomish-Pierce county regions with the goal of expanding successful strategies statewide over the next decade.

Under the memorandum, partners pledged to embrace specific principals including funding early intervention and prevention programs, providing services for specific family needs and increasing economic opportunities through education and workforce assistance.

This announcement is significant for two reasons. First, it's a collective effort. Instead of many organizations working independently to end homelessness, this effort is streamlined. The Gates Foundations wisely leveraged their investment to secure the commitment other key stakeholders, such as additional private funders, state and local government, housing authorities, nonprofit groups, and private companies . Based on what we have learned from Ten Year Plans to End Homelessness (over 300 of which are being implemented across the country), working in tandem is key; no one person or organization will end homelessness alone.

But where the 10-year plans often fall short is funding. This, of course, is what makes the Gates Foundation's involvement in a targeted plan to end homelessness so gosh darn exciting. If this streamlined, well-funded plan is successful in reducing family homelessness in Washington state, we just might see this approach and this investment model replicated in other parts of the country.

(On a totally unrelated note, do you think iPhones or iPods will banned from Washington shelters as part of the agreement?)

Shannon Moriarty has worked in various homeless shelters and service organizations around the country. She is a graduate student studying housing and urban policy at Tufts University.
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