Creating a New “System” of Supportive Housing for the Chronically Homeless

Despite persistent economic and civic challenges in Detroit, there are some encouraging signs of progress, including the community’s collaborative response to chronic homelessness.

The needs are enormous. Detroit ranked third among cities, after Los Angeles and New York, in the total number of homeless and had the highest number of homeless per 10,000 residents, according to the Homelessness Research Institute at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Mental health services have been drastically cut, including the near-elimination of Detroit’s primary street outreach program. And within city government, there is no office advocating for—or accountable to—homeless constituents. The city operates no shelters, placement centers, or warming centers. The responsibility is left to nonprofits.

Against great odds, a handful of best-practice agencies have emerged as leaders in providing supportive housing for the chronically homeless. Supportive housing provides comprehensive, integrated services for homeless individuals and families who face serious, persistent barriers to staying housed, such as substance use, mental illness, and HIV/AIDS. Studies have shown the net public cost of providing permanent supportive housing for homeless people with mental illness and/or addictions is the same or less than allowing them to remain homeless.

When HUD and the Michigan Housing Authority required 10-year plans to end homelessness, Detroit’s leading agencies came together with complementary projects and programs, a shared philosophy of Housing First, and a commitment to strengthening Detroit’s continuum of care for the homeless. To be successful, a collection of projects and services, some new, many old, would need to be fashioned into a system that worked toward community-wide goals for improving outcomes for the homeless.

And that’s what is happening. The Homeless Action Network of Detroit (HAND), the continuum of care organization, is quietly, steadily building capacity to become a Unified Funding Agency to manage federal and state dollars for housing and services to the homeless. HAND, which is supported by the McGregor Fund, will be in a position to truly prioritize community-wide strategies over the efforts of individual, sometimes competing, agencies. This work will be further reinforced by Opening Doors, a new federal strategic plan of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

This became possible when several things came together: talented and tireless volunteer leadership, a strong, embedded partnership with the Corporation for Supportive Housing and a state housing agency wielding both carrots and sticks to encourage more collaboration.

Building systems takes resources, and foundations often are in a unique position to see and know all the moving parts –people, organizations, policy, funding streams. From this position, we can see that the stars are about to align, and changing the status quo and engineering success is possible.

Kate Levin Markel is the program director for the McGregor Fund