The Currie Avenue Housing Partnership
InCommons Collaboration Challenge
The Currie Avenue Housing Partnership
On any given night, between 600 and 700 people experiencing homelessness, many of whom have mental and physical disabilities, sleep on mats on the floor at Hennepin County’s two publicly-funded shelters on Currie Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. The Currie Avenue Partnership (CAP) is an innovative response to this problem, providing permanent housing and supports to people with disabilities who are long-term homeless, as well as reducing the unnecessary cost to taxpayers that results from these individuals cycling through expensive public institutions. The CAP was developed last winter as a partnership between the Downtown Congregations to End Homelessness, the Downtown Business Council, local nonprofit agencies, and Hennepin County government. Business and faith communities raised more than $350,000 to help local nonprofits hire 10 Housing Case Managers who are tasked with ending homelessness for 150 people with disabilities who are living in public shelters by mid-November 2010. The project began officially in May 2010. The private start-up funding raised is leveraging ongoing support from the state's Group Residential Housing (GRH) program, a housing program for people with disabilities.
About You
About You
First Name
Cathy
Last Name
ten Broeke
Country
United States, MN, Hennepin County
About Your Organization
Organization
Heading Home Hennepin
Organization Website
Organization Phone
612-596-1606
Organization Address
300 S. 6th Street, A-2308, Minneapolis, MN, 55487
Organization Country
United States, MN, Hennepin County
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Your Story
Collaboration Title
The Currie Avenue Housing Partnership
Country your work focuses on
United States, MN, Hennepin County
Describe your locally-based collaboration and the problem it sought to address
On any given night, between 600 and 700 people experiencing homelessness, many of whom have mental and physical disabilities, sleep on mats on the floor at Hennepin County’s two publicly-funded shelters on Currie Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. The Currie Avenue Partnership (CAP) is an innovative response to this problem, providing permanent housing and supports to people with disabilities who are long-term homeless, as well as reducing the unnecessary cost to taxpayers that results from these individuals cycling through expensive public institutions. The CAP was developed last winter as a partnership between the Downtown Congregations to End Homelessness, the Downtown Business Council, local nonprofit agencies, and Hennepin County government. Business and faith communities raised more than $350,000 to help local nonprofits hire 10 Housing Case Managers who are tasked with ending homelessness for 150 people with disabilities who are living in public shelters by mid-November 2010. The project began officially in May 2010. The private start-up funding raised is leveraging ongoing support from the state's Group Residential Housing (GRH) program, a housing program for people with disabilities.
Tell us about the community in which this collaboration took place
There are over 4,000 men, women and children experiencing homelessness in Hennepin County. In 2006, a public-private initiative was launched to end homelessness in Minneapolis and Hennepin County by 2016. This initiative, Heading Home Hennepin, is championed by hundreds of faith, nonprofit, business, and government leaders. The CAP is a prime example of this community effort to end homelessness.
Issue Selector
n/a
Partnership
Who was involved in co-creating or implementing your collaboration (other organizations, leaders, community members, etc.)?
The Downtown Congregations to End Homelessness, led by Congregational Organizer Heidi Johnson-McAllister, Rev. Jim Gertmenian, and Rev. Tim Hart-Anderson, along with the Minneapolis Downtown Business Council, led by Sam Grabarski, and the Minneapolis/Hennepin County Office to End Homelessness were instrumental leaders in developing CAP.
To what extent does your collaboration involve partnerships that are outside or cross traditional organizational or sector boundaries?
CAP is an entirely unprecedented partnership between the faith community, the downtown Minneapolis business community, and local government. The faith and business communities collaborated to provide more than $350,000 in funding for local nonprofit agencies to hire 10 new Housing Case Managers, while local government coordinates and oversees the project's implementation.
Innovation
What makes your locally-based collaboration innovative and unique?
Last winter, the Minneapolis/Hennepin County Office to End Homelessness identified many people sleeping in public shelter who were eligible for state housing support. They were not receiving these supports because there were no housing staff available to assist them. We knew that if we could find the start-up funding to hire staff, the ongoing costs of the program would be supported by the state's GRH housing program. Local government budgets have been cut to the point that we knew we could not obtain funding from the City or County. We approached our private faith and business partners and their response was swift and overwhelming. They saw this as both the right thing to do and as a very smart investment. The funds were raised in less than 4 months.
Did you take risks in establishing this collaboration? Explain
There was always the risk that our hypothesis would not prove true. Our hypothesis was that we could raise the start-up funding, hire the case managers quickly, and by November they would be able to house 150 people and have enough reimbursement from the state to sustain the program without further private investment. The program is working just as we hoped. The goal will be met in November.
How did this collaboration differ from the normal way of doing your work?
We have never had this kind of investment from the business and faith communities. This support has allowed us to run a project that could not happen without start-up funding. Prior to this collaboration, people who were eligible for the state-funded housing have often gone without it as a result of having no support in getting connected to the program.
Impact
How do you know your collaboration has been effective?
82 of the most vulnerable people in public shelter are now in permanent housing, with nearly all 150 somewhere in the housing process. They were chosen based on disability eligibility and their length of stay in public shelter. Housing case managers began by housing people who have been in shelter for over 500 days. This collaboration has ended homelessness for people who have languished in shelter for years. Evaluation is in place to measure housing retention and public system costs pre and post housing placement.
What progress or impact has been made?
To date, 139 people experiencing homelessness have been assigned to CAP agencies, 82 of those individuals have been placed in permanent, supportive housing, and 45 more are currently undergoing the intake and housing search process. Providing housing for these individuals has improved downtown, reduced taxpayer costs, and, most importantly, greatly benefited the individuals' quality of life.
Next Steps
How would you go about continuing, expanding, or replicating this collaboration?
Expanding the collaborative can be accomplished through combined efforts to disseminate the message that, as a community, when we come together, we can end homelessness for the betterment of us all, despite coming from different areas of society. Now that the faith, business, and government sectors have built an initial relationship around the common interest of ending homelessness, one way in which the partnership can grow is through increased advocacy and fundraising for other innovative or best practice projects. This means expanding the roles of these different sectors to become even more active in the initiative to end homelessness throughout Hennepin County, as messengers, advocates, volunteers, and donors. They can work together as a cohesive unit to leverage ever more support, both publicly and privately, for the movement to end homelessness, and thereby make the greater community a better, more efficient, and healthier place for everyone. In addition, CAP exists as a relationship model that could be replicated throughout the state of Minnesota and across the entire nation.
Describe the current stage of implementation and desired next steps
The project is in the latter stages of implementation. It has been operating successfully since May to house individuals with disabilities who are experiencing homelessness and living in publicly-funded shelters in downtown Minneapolis. 139 individuals have been assigned to CAP agencies, 82 have been housed, and 45 more are in the intake and housing search process. The project is on-track to meet the goal of housing 150 people by mid-November, which will, in turn, allow the state's GRH program to continue funding the efforts of the Housing Case Managers indefinitely. Currently, the desired next step is to develop funding to expand the model in order to support existing street outreach efforts that will provide housing and supports to people who are living and sleeping on the streets, in parks or abandoned buildings, and under bridges and overpasses. A private donor gave $50,000 to help with this expansion, with the promise of a further $50,000 if a matching amount of $50,000 can be leveraged, for a total of $150,000. Expanding the CAP model to bolster street outreach will house 45 people living outside in the first 9 months of operation and improve livability throughout Minneapolis.
| 135 weeks ago Sean McGee updated this Competition Entry. | |
| 135 weeks ago Sean McGee submitted this idea. |
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