Nan Roman’s Keynote Address—National Conference on Ending Family Homelessness 2008
National Alliance to End Homelessness President Nan Roman's keynote address from the National Conference on Ending Family Homelessness 2008 on February 7, 2008.

Assessment Tools Roundtable
Assessment tools that can accurately identify the service and housing supports required to help families quickly escape homelessness are in great demand. This interactive discussion explored the limitations and potential of assessment tools to target the appropriate housing and service packages to families. The Arizona Self-Sufficiency Scale was examined and its appropriate use and potential explored.

Building the Will in the Nonprofit Sector
Many communities have developed plans to end homelessness but full implementation requires the infusion of new resources and broad commitment, from political leaders to nonprofit providers, to reshape the response to family homelessness. This workshop, designed for public sector officials and other community leaders, examined strategies to transform the service system from a shelter-based approach to a focus on permanent housing. Speakers explored funding mechanisms, such as performance based contracting, as well as strategies that can be used when community leaders have no financial resources to facilitate service shifts.

Cross-Cultural Situations: From Sensitivity to Competency
Making decisions about housing and serving clients is often viewed from a lens that is culturally biased. Organizations must continuously promote the skills, practices, and interactions necessary to ensure that social services are delivered in a culturally responsive and competent manner. This workshop addressed cultural competency among your staff and board and how to build it into a program design that will lead to respectful interactions, efficient operations, and improved client outcomes.

Domestic Violence: Key Services and Outcomes
Survivors of domestic violence have both short and long-term housing needs that must be met so that they do not have to choose between staying with an abusive partner and residing in shelter or on the streets. These families face unique challenges that require unique solutions. Workshop speakers focused on increasing family safety and financial and housing security while helping families cope with and overcome the effects of trauma and violence.

Effective Federal Advocacy and Policy Updates
Advocacy is the best strategy for convincing Congress to make ending family homelessness a top priority. This beginner to intermediate workshop provided participants with a brief update on current policies targeted to ending family homelessness. Workshop speakers discussed effective advocacy strategies for moving these initiatives forward and encourage participants to share their own advocacy experiences.

Ending Family Homelessness in Rural America
Rural communities face a unique set of challenges and opportunities in responding to the problem of family homelessness. Workshop speakers examined how rural communities can use their existing service systems to respond to family homelessness. Workshop speakers discussed promising models and effective strategies.

Ending Family Homelessness: The Basics
This workshop provided an overview of the promising strategies that communities are using to end family homelessness. This introductory workshop covered Housing First approaches, explored how communities are targeting prevention resources, and recommended when to use more intensive service models such as transitional housing and permanent supportive housing.

Faith in Housing: Moving from Social Justice to Housing Planning and Development
This workshop explored involvement of faith-based communities in delivering permanent housing to homeless families. In particular, the workshop highlighted case examples of faith-based organizations that have become housing developers or have assisted communities in converting buildings into affordable housing for homeless families. In addition, workshop speakers highlighted how smaller faith-based organizations can contribute to ending homelessness among families.

Foundations: Agents of Systems Change
Foundations are making investments to reshape the provision of services to families within communities. Examples range from introducing new housing and service models to facilitating the integration of early education activities in homeless programs. In this workshop, speakers provided examples from their own communities and discussed strategies to fully engage foundations (and win support) in the effort to end family homelessness.

Healthcare Matters: Providing Health Services to Diverse Populations
Homeless families with children suffer from high rates of mental and physical health problems, including HIV/AIDS, which are often exacerbated by living on the streets and in shelters. In addition, there are serious health disparities that also play a role in the health of homeless families. This workshop highlighted recent research in health disparities, best practices in public health, and what they mean for families experiencing homelessness.

Improving Children's Outcomes
A healthy home environment and comprehensive early education are critical components of a child’s success later in life. Homeless children are at high risk for disruptions in development and education. Workshop speakers focused on strategies to link children with school (preschool through elementary school) and appropriate interventions that promote healthy physical and mental development. This workshop addressed the importance of engaging parents in meeting the child’s developmental needs both directly and through advocacy on the child’s behalf.

Improving State and Local Policy Through Advocacy
States and localities have been successful at developing, modifying, and implementing policies that assist families experiencing homelessness. This has resulted in improved programs and more resources for affordable housing and homeless assistance programs, including state and local trust funds and new homelessness prevention resources. Workshop speakers discussed successful advocacy strategies for improving state and local policy and how to replicate them in your community.

Linking Families to Support Services
Families who experience homelessness are often eligible for important sources of public financial and social supports ranging from TANF cash assistance to Head Start services for children. Unfortunately, many families do not utilize these services and programs. This workshop examined how homeless programs can improve families’ access to critical supports by building relationships with the key public systems that serve low income families and children.

Partnering with Housing Agencies
Partnering with local public housing authorities (PHAs), housing finance agencies, and community development corporations can be a valuable tool for acquiring housing subsidies to serve homeless families. This entry-level workshop, which was intended for homeless service providers and public officials, focused on effective strategies and models for engaging PHAs and other housing agencies.

Permanent Supportive Housing for Families
For families with significant barriers to maintaining housing, permanent supportive housing is an effective solution. This workshop offered examples of effective permanent supportive housing strategies. Workshop speakers provided examples of how permanent supportive housing is targeted to families with the greatest barriers to maintaining housing and how these efforts fit into their communities' overall homelessness strategies.

Predicting Homelessness and Targeting Dollars
Homelessness prevention is a challenging but potentially powerful tool for ending homelessness. Those interested or involved in planning, designing, or advocating for prevention strategies or resources will be interested in this discussion of the merits of different new approaches to targeting prevention. Instead of highlighting specific models, workshop speakers addressed questions on how much assistance should be provided, when, and to whom.

Shifting Resources, Maintaining Emergency Responses
Maintaining shelter capacity to meet the pressing needs of families while embracing and funding new strategies to end homelessness is challenging. This workshop, designed for systems level leaders, examined how communities are balancing existing shelter needs and investments in new permanent housing strategies. Workshop speakers also discussed strategies for targeting more intensive resources to higher need families.

Supporting and Retaining Staff: Promoting Consistency in the Lives of Families
Experts in responding to high-need homeless families report that it is the families’ relationship with their caseworker that promotes stability and improved outcomes. This workshop examined the service strategies that benefit high-need families and how organizations can support and retain the frontline workers who offer a stable relationship and consistency in the lives of vulnerable families.

Working Towards Employment
Families need a steady source of income in order to maintain or re-access housing. Increasing employment skills and opportunities also helps families achieve greater stability and family well-being. This workshop focused on employment promotion strategies and explored lessons culled from research on promoting employment among welfare recipients.

Working with Landlords to Find Housing
With the increasing focus on helping homeless people obtain permanent housing, providers have come up with creative ways to locate affordable housing and entice landlords to become partners. This workshop is for anyone involved in helping homeless families move into private market housing. Workshop speakers described the strategies they use when working with landlords and provide suggestions on how to find affordable housing in your community.

Youth Development and Youth as Parents
Adolescence is a stage in human development that includes important physical, psychosocial, and cognitive development. This workshop reviewed youth development concepts for providers who are serving adolescents, pregnant and parenting youth, and young adults. Workshop speakers focused on how to help youth and young parents prepare for a successful transition to adulthood.

Emergency Assistance: Preventing Homelessness
This workshop examined promising emergency assistance strategies to prevent family homelessness as well as approaches that are responsive to the housing needs of families residing in precarious housing situations. Workshop speakers explored a range of interventions that both help families retain their current housing and re-house families living in doubled up situations or in motels who are at imminent risk of homelessness.

Financing It: Innovatice Public Funding Strategies
Ending homelessness requires new resources including funding to support housing and services. This workshop explored policy strategies that communities have utilized to generate new resources. This workshop also provided an overview of how communities are using state and local resources, such as TANF and HOME funds, to support ending family homelessness and developing partnerships that leverage services for families.

Measuring Success Using Performance Measurement
What does your organization do well? What could it improve? Program measurement is an important element in moving programs forward. Understanding what is effective helps program managers monitor their programs, deliver services, and secure funding. Topics included program and system-wide performance measures.

Online Communication and Engaging the Media as a Strategic Tool
Effective public education and communication can help an organization raise visibility within the community, increase funding, and improve awareness and knowledge of the solutions to homelessness. This beginner workshop taught how to effectively engage the print and broadcast media as well as utilize new online tools, like blogs and electronic newsletters, to disseminate a comprehensive, effective message.

Promoting Recovery: Substance Use Treatment Services
This workshop explored the merits and challenges of various substance use treatment models for assisting families struggling with substance use disorders. Workshop speakers from the treatment community focused on how to place clients in a treatment model that will work best for them.

Rapid Re-housing
Helping families experiencing homelessness to quickly re-access permanent housing and offering them home-based case management services following a housing placement has contributed to declines in family homelessness. This workshop examined the key elements of rapid re-housing programs, including how they operate, how to fund them, and how to know if they are successful.

Systems Planning: New Research and Implications for Targeting Resources
New research examining patterns of family shelter use is raising questions about how communities should allocate homeless assistance resources. This advanced workshop for public and community leaders examined new research on shelter utilization and highlight strategies communities are using to target resources more efficiently and achieve better system-wide outcomes.

National Conference on Ending Family Homelessness 2008 Brochure
The National Alliance to End Homelessness will hold its fourth annual national conference on ending family homelessness in Seattle on February 7 and 8, 2008. The conference will bring together leaders from all parts of the country, from the nonprofit provider community, to local, state, and federal government, to business and philanthropy. We will share solutions, confront issues, and unite in our resolve to ensure that the day is near when no child or parent will experience homelessness.