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  Meet the Interns - Summer 2013 Edition

  May 31, 2013

  With today's guest blog post, we'd like to take a moment to introduce you to the great interns who are working in our DC office this summer. If you're going to the 2013 National Conference on Ending Family Homelessness this July, you'll probably get a chance to meet them in person. For now, though, here they are in blog form (and in their own words.)

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  Poor People Can’t Afford Housing. How Can We Fix That?

  March 21, 2013

  We over at the National Low Income Housing Coalition spend most of our time focused on solving one specific problem: the acute shortage of housing that is affordable and available to extremely low income (ELI) households. This shortage is a primary driver of homelessness, and closing the gap between the number of affordable housing units and ELI households will make a big difference in the ongoing effort to prevent and end homelessness.

  Our latest numbers show that, for every 100 ELI households, there are just 30 affordable and available units. This number grows every year. In our annual report Out of Reach (released this month), the authors reveal that nationwide, a household must earn $18.79 an hour (working 40 hours  a week, 52 weeks a year) in order  to afford a decent two bedroom rental home. This number, which we call the “housing wage,” is even higher in many parts of the country. (You can get data on your own community at the NLIHC website.)

  While federal programs exist to help make housing more affordable for ELI households, these programs are oversubscribed, and many eligible households go unassisted, even if they otherwise qualify. Low income households desperately in need of housing find themselves on years-long waiting lists, or find that waiting lists for affordable housing in their area are closed entirely. Households on waiting lists for housing assistance have an average wait time of two years.

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• My Experience at the Alliance: A Brief Look (because it WAS brief)

  July 06, 2012

  Today’s post was written by Tessa Knight, West Point Fellow with the Alliance.

  There’s this idea in my mind that someday I want to be part of changing lives, and I really can’t think of a better way to directly influence people than by housing and clothing them. So when West Point offered this three week summer academic enrichment opportunity at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, I jumped at it.

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• Why You Should Go to the Summer Alliance Conference on Ending Homelessness

  May 24, 2012

  Today's blog was written by Iain De Jong, President & CEO of OrgCode Consulting. Over almost a decade, attendance at the National Conference on Ending Homelessness put on by the National Alliance to End Homelessness in Washington, DC each year has changed my experience in working in homeless programs and services for the better. In this guest blog for the Alliance, I thought I’d tell you all the reasons why you should go… Why You Should Go to the Summer Alliance Conference on Ending Homelessness You Are Not Alone – meet other people that do the same thing you do day in and day out. Realizing you are not alone is a good feeling and it can be empowering. Smart People – I don’t know how they do it, but the Alliance does an amazing job attracting really smart people and speakers year after year. Realizing You Are Part of A Movement Bigger Than Yourself – maybe where you live people cock their head sideways and think you have completely lost it when you speak of ending homelessness. The people at the conference? They get it. Agenda is Content Rich – have you seen the agenda for the conference? You won’t find that much amazing content at any other homeless conferences. DC Is a Great Place for a Conference – with all of the museums, great nightlife, and other sights to see, you’ll find your time pre- and post- conference well spent…and perhaps at... Read More »
• Introducing Guest Blogger Maddison Bruer

  May 08, 2012

  Today's guest blog is from Maddison Bruer, who we will be hearing from periodically on our blog this summer as she updates us on her work with Bridges of Norman.  Hello everybody! My name is Maddison Bruer and I’ve been given the opportunity this summer to share a little bit about myself and a project I am working on this summer with you on the Alliance's blog. First, a bit about myself: I am finishing up my first year at The George Washington University studying International Affairs and Psychology. Home for me is Norman, Oklahoma. When I was in first grade my class had "career day" where every first grader wrote a story about what he or she wanted to be when they were all grown up. I said police officer. Those dreams of serving in the public sector have followed me into my adulthood as I take steps to one day work for the CIA or State Department. If I fail at said aspirations, I’ve vowed that I will move to Miami and join the police academy. I love the heat anyway. Right now, I’m living part of my dream by interning for the Peace Corps and working with a committee to revamp the Volunteer application and delivery system. After months of living and breathing Peace Corps, I’m realizing the vast opportunities that could come from continuing that relationship as a Volunteer myself, after college of cours... Read More »
• Guest Blog: The Federal Strategic Plan and Youth Homelessness

  April 13, 2012

  Today’s blog comes from Jennifer Ho, Deputy Director at the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.  She writes today about USICH’s initiative to update the Federal Strategic Plan to include further content on youth experiencing homelessness and educational outcomes of homeless or at-risk youth. Almost two years have passed since we launched Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. With the help and support from thousands of stakeholders across the United States we have made progress against the bold goals of the Plan by increasing investment in solutions, adopting proven tools to prevent and end homelessness, breaking down silos, and improving data collection, analysis, and reporting. We remain committed to the goals of Opening Doors and to the comprehensive approach described in the Plan. For this year's update to Opening Doors, we are responding to requests that additional content and clarity would be helpful in two key areas: early childhood learning and educational outcomes for youth and children experiencing homelessness; and broad strategies on unaccompanied youth up through age 24. Barbara Poppe and I have toured many youth-serving programs across America since the release of Opening Doors. We have talked with many youth, as well as leadership from providers and advocacy groups. We have also convened an interagency dialogue across the many federal agencies that have youth-specific responsibilities. We have been focused on what is known about the magnitude of the problem and what interventions work best... Read More »
• ReRun: The Right Organization At The Right Time For The Right Need

  March 19, 2012

  Today's blog is a re-run of a guest blog from Iain  DeJong. This post was among the top 10 most popular in 2011. [caption id="attachment_7751" align="alignright" width="362" caption="Iain DeJong presenting at the 2010 National Conference on Ending Homelessness."][/caption] I have the great privilege of working with communities and organizations across North America that are dedicated to ending homelessness. Being the nerd that I am, I feel passionate about using real-time information to link the right intervention to the people who need that intervention. This seems to make sense to a lot of people, but the unfortunate reality is that this is not how many organizations or communities work. Imagine you have a heart attack. You are rushed to the hospital by paramedics. I now want to give you a choice: you can be seen by a cardiologist or an obstetrician/gynecologist (OB/GYN). Which one do you choose? The cardiologist, of course. Are cardiologists successful with heart attack victims 100 percent of the time? Nope. But that doesn’t prevent us from seeking out cardiologists when we experience a heart attack. They’re heart experts after all. Here is another choice for you: again, you’ve had a heart attack. The cardiologist and OB/GYN choices remain, but this time I want to add a third choice: an acquaintance who watches a lot of House on TV. Oh, and he used to watch ER, dabbles in Grey’s Anatomy, and loves MA... Read More »
• The Right Organization at the Right Time for the Right Need

  November 30, 2011

  Today's guest blog comes to the Alliance from Iain  DeJong. [caption id="attachment_7751" align="alignright" width="402" caption="Iain DeJong presenting at the 2010 National Conference on Ending Homelessness."][/caption] I have the great privilege of working with communities and organizations across North America that are dedicated to ending homelessness. Being the nerd that I am, I feel passionate about using real-time information to link the right intervention to the people who need that intervention. This seems to make sense to a lot of people, but the unfortunate reality is that this is not how many organizations or communities work. Imagine you have a heart attack. You are rushed to the hospital by paramedics. I now want to give you a choice: you can be seen by a cardiologist or an obstetrician/gynecologist (OB/GYN). Which one do you choose? The cardiologist, of course. Are cardiologists successful with heart attack victims 100 percent of the time? Nope. But that doesn’t prevent us from seeking out cardiologists when we experience a heart attack. They’re heart experts after all. Here is another choice for you: again, you’ve had a heart attack. The cardiologist and OB/GYN choices remain, but this time I want to add a third choice: an acquaintance who watches a lot of House on TV. Oh, and he used to watch ER, dabbles in Grey’s Anatomy, and loves MASH re-runs. Who do you choose this time? My money is still... Read More »
• Home For Good: An Opportunity to End Homelessness Through Partnership

  July 28, 2011

  Today's post comes to us from Donna Gallup, MSW, LSW, and Executive Director of Lamp Community in Los Angeles, CA. Recent homeless counts have found that nearly 50,000 homeless individuals and families live in Los Angeles County on any given night. Chronically homeless individuals – homeless for a year or more and coping with one or more serious health, mental health and addiction problems – account for nearly 12,000 of that total; 6,000 newly homeless veterans also live in L.A. Last November, an extraordinary report called Home For Good laid out a blueprint to end chronic and veteran homelessness in L.A. County by 2016. Lamp Community is proud to support the plan, based on 10 months of work by the Business Leaders Task Force on Homelessness, a group of 22 organizations assembled by the United Way and the L.A. Chamber of Commerce. Home For Good’s goal is not only to find permanent housing for chronically homeless individuals, but also to provide intensive supportive services and treatment to help them regain their physical and mental health and self-esteem, and to help them reintegrate into the community. This is the work that Lamp Community has done for more than 25 years in L.A.’s Skid Row, which has the highest concentration of homelessness in Los Angeles. We at Lamp are happy to see the movement toward permanent supportive housing as a best practice for ending homelessness. Think about what it would mean to end chronic and veteran... Read More »
• Guest Blog: "Mad as hell" in Lincoln, NE

  May 18, 2011

  Today's guest post comes to us from Aaron Bowen, Chief Operating Officer at the Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders Counties. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore.” In the Oscar award-winning, Sidney Lumet-directed film “Network,” protagonist Howard Beale is just fed up - and I think many of us in the homeless assistance community can sympathize with his frustration. Here in Lincoln, Nebraska, just over 830 people in a city of around 250,000 were identified as homeless during our January 26, 2011 Point in Time count. Though our overall homeless count dipped slightly from last year—thanks to a very well-run Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program—we remain worked up knowing that so many people still are homeless in Lincoln. The trouble is, every group, task force, or coalition that does get together enters the strange and often frightening world of “planning” which can sap the life out of groups attempting to tackle the issue that matters to them most. But, like holding a magnifying glass at just the right angle to gather sunlight to its hottest point, planning is necesary in order to focus that “mad as hell” moment into a powerful force for change. In Lincoln, that’s just what our Continuum of Care did—we planned! Partnering with experts from the National Alliance to End Homelessness’s Center for Capacity Building, we laid Lincoln’s homelessness services system on the table for dissection. We talked candidly ... Read More »
• Whitney Gent: Housing as a Human Right

  May 16, 2011

  Today’s guest post comes to us from Whitney Gent, Development & Communications Director at the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. Recent polling indicates that 3/4 of Americans believe that adequate housing is a human right, and 2/3 believe that government programs need to be expanded to ensure this right. The U.S. helped shape the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights – both of which recognize that housing is not a privilege, but a right. But despite our declarations and our international treaty ratifications, it’s obvious our ideals do not match our reality. But now, we’re seeing big progress. This March, for the first time, the federal government officially acknowledged that reducing homelessness implicates its human rights obligations. Government is now catching up with advocates who have been working for this recognition for years. This is thanks to advocates across the country who have demanded that our government be held accountable to its international commitments and to make the human right to housing a reality here at home. Using a rights-based framework for homelessness advocacy gives us a different set of tools to create change, to end homelessness. A rights-based framework can help us fight budget cuts that would send more people to the streets. It will help us turn the Federal Plan to End Homelessness into federal action. This June 7-8, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty... Read More »
• A European Perspective to Ending Homelessness

  April 13, 2011

  Today’s post was written by Suzannah Young, Communications Officer at FEANTSA (European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless). Suzannah thanks the Alliance for inviting her to write. FEANTSA, the European Federation of National Organisations working with the Homeless, is an umbrella of NGOs which contribute to the fight against homelessness in Europe.  It is the only major European network that focuses exclusively on homelessness in the European Union (EU). I’m grateful for this opportunity to tell you about FEANTSA and hope it will be interesting for you too.  Actually, our Director recently took part in a meeting on homelessness involving Australia, Canada, Europe and the USA and enjoyed the opportunity to share best practices.  So, as part of a big sharing exercise, this post should clarify how FEANTSA tries to tackle homelessness in Europe, working with NGOs and other stakeholders in the fight against homelessness: local authorities; national governments; legal and health professionals; the EU institutions; the housing sector (public and private); transport companies; human rights organizations; academics, etc. The NGOs we work with are largely our members – more than 100 national or regional umbrellas of homeless service providers, operating in areas including housing, health, employment and social protection, in 30 countries.  We have close contact with the EU institutions (mainly the European Parliament[1] and the European Commission,[2]) and have consultative status at the Council of Europe[3] and the United Nations. One of FEANTSA’s main roles is to promote ... Read More »
• Guest Blog: Health Care and Homelessness, by Abe Oudshoorn

  December 16, 2010

  Today’s guest blog post comes from Abe Oudshoorn, RN, PhD(c), Year 4 Coordinator, School of Nursing, The University of Western Ontario. After spending three years on a Dissertation research study about homelessness and health care, I realized that I nearly missed the point. I am a registered nurse by trade, and my clinical background is working with people who are experiencing homelessness in a community-based clinic. Based on my observations of the importance of healthy client-provider relationships, I set out to study these relationships, and particularly how power comes into play in health care relationships. I had a lot to work with going into the study: I knew that people who are experiencing homelessness face the worst morbidity rates in Canada, I knew that homeless persons face multiple barriers to accessing health care, and I knew that negative attitudes of health professionals have consistently been identified as the primary barrier to care for homeless people. So I did my study, and - sure enough - I heard and saw much conflict in client-provider relationships. But when I set about to write, my committee members asked about how policy impacts on my findings. And this is what I almost missed: Indeed, health providers do use and abuse control with homeless clients, but much of the workplace context is beyond their control. For example, in the clinic I was studying, there were very limited resources (socks, bus tickets, food and clothing) a... Read More »
• Last Chance! Scholarships available for HS students (Deadline Oct 30)!!

  October 28, 2010

  Today’s post comes to us from John McGah, Executive Director of Give US Your Poor. This Saturday, October 30, is the deadline for homeless, formerly homeless, and at-risk high school students to apply for a Horatio Alger Association college scholarship. Nearly 1,000 scholarships are available this year. The Horatio Alger Association helps students who have overcome hardship attend college. This year, through a partnership with Give US Your Poor: The Campaign to End Homelessness (part of UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies), they are targeting students who have experienced homelessness. The relationship between the Horatio Alger Association and Give US Your Poor began in 2007, at the Give US Your Poor Concert for to benefit people experiencing homelessness in Boston, MA. During his performance, Greek tenor Mario Frangoulis welcomed 13-year-old Kyla Middleton on stage. Kyla is a top-notch student, articulate public speaker, sings beautifully, and was homeless with her family for a year. Mario and Kyla sang a duet of John Lennon’s, “Imagine,” to the Dorchester audience. Tears, applause, and a standing ovation followed. Then, to Kyla’s surprise, Mario announced that she was being awarded a $20,000 college scholarship from The Horatio Alger Association. That was a cool moment. So cool, that it inspired UMass Boston Chancellor, Dr. Keith Motley, to create a 4-year scholarship, given annually, to attend UMass Boston for a Mass. student that has experienced homelessness. Which leads us to the scholarships offered this year: almost 1,00... Read More »
• Take Five with Rosanne Haggerty!

  October 27, 2010

  Today's guest post comes to us from Rosanne Haggerty,founder of Common Ground New York and the 100,000 Homes Campaign. What is the newest issue emerging in homelessness policy? One issue with large potential impact is that more communities are using data to redesign their response to homelessness. Communities with the most information on who is homeless are in the best position to help people out of homelessness. Better data means being able to use mainstream programs more effectively— for instance, if we know who exactly is a veteran, or who qualifies for senior housing, our options for housing those people expand significantly. Along with many partners, we recently launched the 100,000 Homes Campaign to help communities across the country identify, house and support their most vulnerable homeless residents. Participating means having help in gathering person-specific data on who is homeless and in the most fragile health; creating a successful housing placement system; and being part of and learning from a network of others working collectively to house 100,000 vulnerable people by July 2013. What issue in homelessness policy should everyone be reminded of? I think many of us were inspired after Hurricane Katrina when over 80,000 people took to craigslist to offer housing to those made homeless by the storm. It jolted me into realizing that people naturally take care of each other in moments of crisis. The homeless never forget that homelessness is an urgent problem, but I think the rest of us o... Read More »
• National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty to host McKinney-Vento Awards

  October 13, 2010

  Today’s guest post comes from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. Our good friends at NLCHP are hosting their annual McKinney-Vento Awards tomorrow - Thursday, October 14 - at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel. Each year, at our annual McKinney-Vento Awards, NLCHP pays tribute to the voices of homeless persons and those fighting to make them heard. This year, on Thursday, October 14, at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C., NLCHP is proud to welcome U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan as keynote speaker at an evening honoring individuals and organizations who have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the fight to end homelessness in America. The NLCHP is pleased honor New York Times best-selling author Barbara Ehrenreich, whose work has demonstrated a deep commitment to raising awareness of and promoting understanding about poverty and homelessness in the U.S. We are also excited to honor Dechert LLP, a firm with an exemplary record of pro bono legal work. Lastly, we will honor the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania, which will receive the Bruce F. Vento Award. We are also honored to recognize the Elzer family with the Personal Achievement Award. Last spring, in the span of a month, the Elzers lost everything. The father, William, lost his job, the family's vehicle was repossessed, and they were forced out of their house and into shelter. But as the children began to adjust to their... Read More »
• Educating homeless children - Nathan Hand, School on Wheels

  October 05, 2010

  Our guest post today comes from Nathan Hand of School on Wheels in Indianapolis, IN. The anatomy of a movement Seventeen years ago, Agnes Stevens saw something severely wrong with the world. Millions of children were homeless and not able to focus on their education among the distractions and hardships that come with their situation. She started School on Wheels Inc. – a volunteer-based tutoring effort to support these vulnerable children. She rallied volunteer support and started gathering supplies. It literally all began by handing out backpacks, pencils, crayons and glue sticks to kids on the street. Today, there are nearly 1,500 tutors spread across Southern California helping homeless youth focus on their education and get the one-on-one help they often need. Nine years ago, Sally Bindley from Indianapolis, Indiana saw a similar problem. She learned of Agnes’ efforts, flew to L.A. and shadowed her. For two weeks she talked to kids, parents, tutors, staff, shelters and anyone involved in the effort. Taking copious notes she brought back the pieces of the program that she thought would best suit the issue in Indianapolis and got to work. She gathered a couple friends, started collecting supplies, engaged tutors, and built funding relationships. And sure enough, School on Wheels Corp. was born. Today there are over 500 volunteer tutors serving every child in a family homeless shelter in Indianapolis. In addition, all students receive a new backpack packed full of school supplies, a new boo... Read More »
• Tiago Russo Pinto: Run Home

  September 29, 2010

  Today’s post comes from Tiago Russo Pinto, the winner of the Alliance photo contest. He shares with us the origins of the beautiful photograph and how he came upon the opportunity to take it. The Run Home photo was part of a 2007 Bay Area Foundation Advisory Group to End Homelessness. It was a group effort to create the right image for the cover of the publication entitled, "Repairing Lives, Preparing Futures: Philanthropy's Role in Supportive Services to End Homelessness." During the development of the project, the team had a concept in mind for the execution and look of the image; however, we were not sure if it would translate into what we wanted without looking staged. When I met the family featured in the photograph I knew that they would materialize our message – they had just been approved for housing and they were ready to move in a couple of months. It was a great experience for me as a photographer because I had the chance to capture a scene that had meaning. The family in the photograph was truly feeling what the image portrayed as in real life they had conquered and fulfilled their dream. I was there just to capture their success story. To see all the great photos submitted to the contest, check out our Flickr page. To keep up with other Alliance activities, events, or just to learn more about homelessness, join us on Facebook or ... Read More »
• Book Proceeds for Homelessness

  September 08, 2010

  Today we would like to introduce you to John and Rose Bottensek who have committed themselves to the effort to end homelessness by donating a dollar to the Alliance for every copy of their new book that they sell. John is the author of of the new novel; Rose, his wife, is the editor. Read below to hear from the authors how this great movement has inspired them. As the ongoing economic crisis continues to affect so many Americans, one of the most pressing issues that takes center stage in our minds is the plague of homelessness – an issue that has long been ignored by our American community. In fact, as I write this, I notice my spell check doesn’t even recognize it as a word. That alone speaks volumes as to the lack of recognition this issue receives. The number of homeless where I live-- Madison, Wisconsin – has actually decreased by forty percent in the past five years. I cannot offer an opinion as to why because, like most people, I haven’t paid much attention to the problem until recently. That is not to say we don’t notice the lines outside the shelters in the evenings, some reaching around the block at times. We live in one of the most beautiful, most prosperous cities in the country. If the problem of homelessness is identifiable here, it is shameful to imagine what it must look like at on a natio... Read More »
• Extra: Five Years Later

  August 30, 2010

  Today’s guest blog comes from Martha Kegel of UNITY. The Blessings of Katrina The mood this weekend across New Orleans was somber.  Rain poured and dark threatening clouds filled the sky, and I couldn’t seem to shake the gloom.  The rebroadcasts of people stranded on their rooftops five years ago only served to remind me of all those who did not survive.  All weekend I could feel a pain in my chest at the sight of all those empty houses everywhere I go, the thought of all those New Orleanians still displaced, homeowners still struggling to make their houses habitable, disabled people squatting in abandoned buildings because of drastically inflated rents.  This was supposed to be over with by now. But it’s not. Yesterday, the fifth anniversary of Katrina, I awoke early in the darkness.  By eight o’clock, I was on my way to the Lower Ninth Ward, the scene of the worst devastation in New Orleans, where a poorly designed levee broke with such force that a wall of water swept a neighborhood away, leaving not much but a huge barge behind.  Much of the devastation remains.  Spending the morning in the Lower Nine was a bad idea, I thought to myself all the way there. But it wasn’t. As soon as I fell in line with a crowd of neighborhood people behind a high school brass band sending forth those joyful and unmistakably New Orleans soun... Read More »

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