Lessons From a Successful Approach to Ending Homelessness

Rosanne Haggerty’s approach to homelessness is so promising that it earned the organization she leads a $100 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation to end homelessness in 75 communities across America. It’s an approach that is deeply rooted in collaboration, data, and design-based innovation—all critical capacities that Bloomberg Philanthropies helps local governments master—and it’s getting results. Haggerty sat down with Bloomberg Cities to share lessons from this work.

Key Take-aways and Tools to Combat Homelessness

• They’ve got all the agencies, institutions, and actors aligned toward a single goal of getting to functional-zero homelessness
• Treating homelessness is almost like a public-health emergency or an emergency-management problem
• “Someone must organize it, resource it with data, and provide follow-up support and hold people to their commitments. It’s critical to have someone in that coordinator role, who is empowered to keep the team moving.
• There must be consistent reflection on what’s working and what isn’t, to continue to iterate and improve. “
• It’s critical for the various groups working on homelessness to know everyone who’s experiencing it by name, in real time, in one information system.
• Human-Centered Design – method of deeply understanding a problem from the perspective of those experiencing it, and building solutions around their needs.