In 2000, the National Alliance to End Homelessness released A Plan, Not a Dream: How to End Homelessness in Ten Years - a bold, innovative strategy to end homelessness in the United States.

Homelessness has so permeated the American landscape that it may seem that the social conundrum has always been a part of our society. However, homelessness is a thoroughly modern phenomenon. Until the 1980s, there was not widespread homelessness in America. But tonight, nearly 700,000 people will experience homelessness across the country, despite a $2 billion dollar a year infrastructure designed to deal with the problem.

What can we be doing better?

Drawing on the latest research and effective programs from around the country, the Ten Year Plan outlines key strategies in addressing homelessness locally, which cumulatively can address the issue nationally. The plan outlines four key elements of a plan to end homelessness:

• Plan for outcomes. Every jurisdiction should collect data and use it to identify the different groups of people experiencing homelessness: elderly people, youth, families, individuals, and others. The data can then be used to identify the most effective strategy for each subgroup of the homeless population. Jurisdictions should bring those responsible for mainstream as well as homelessness-specific resources to the planning table to plan to draw each group out of homelessness.
• Close the front door. Communities can prevent homelessness before it starts. By making mainstream poverty programs more accountable for the outcomes of their clients, communities can intervene before vulnerable individuals and families fall into homelessness.
• Open the back door. At it’s core, homelessness occurs when people are not able to acquire housing then can afford. By developing - and subsidizing when needed - an adequate supply of affordable housing, communities can move people off of the streets and reduce homelessness effectively and permanently.
• Build the infrastructure. Ending homelessness can be a first step in addressing the systemic problems that lead to crisis poverty, including a shortage of affordable housing, incomes that do not pay for basic needs, and a lack of appropriate services for those that need them. Addressing all of these issues community by community is a necessary step to ending homelessness and poverty.

Since the release of this blueprint, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Bush Administration have endorsed the idea of planning to end chronic homelessness in ten years, the Obama Administration pledged to end veterans homelessness within five years, and the US Interagency Council on Homelessness challenged cities to create plans to end homelessness. The momentum has built across the country — to date, there are 243 completed plans to end homelessness across the country. These plans echo key strategies outlined in the Alliance’s plan and represent a critical, collective effort to end homelessness nationwide. The Homelessness Research Institute at the National Alliance to End Homelessness recently completed a study evaluating the completed plans. The report, A Shifting Focus, evaluates the elements and implementation of the plans.

The Alliance maintains a database of the existing plans and encourages communities developing plans to submit theirs.