A New Vision: What is in Community Plans to End Homelessness?

Date: 1 Nov 2006

Author: National Alliance to End Homelessness

A New Vision: What is in Community Plans to End Homelessness? examines the content of Ten Year Plans to End Homelessness from across the country. This study reveals that 90 communities have completed plans that dramatically transform their homeless assistance systems. The study also shows that communities must set clear numeric goals, timetables, and identify funding and implementing bodies to ensure they move from planning to action. In each of the plans, communities outline a wide range of strategies, including: creating data systems; preventing homelessness — both emergency prevention and prevention at the systems level; outreach to homeless people to get them back into housing; shortening the time that people spend homeless by using rapid re-housing strategies; creating permanent housing options for homeless people; and, once homeless people become housed, linking them to services and to programs that will help them boost their income and increase their ability to afford housing in the future. The report then goes on to analyze the strength of the plans by calculating a score for each strategy based on the likelihood that it would be implemented.

Read A New Vision: What is in Community Plans to End Homelessness?