Prioritizing the Need
In Spring 2023, Callaway County community partners kicked off a collaborative community needs assessment process with a data walk. At the data walk, CMCA shared county-specific data related to education, housing, health, income, education, employment, and other social characteristics as well as the results from a jointly designed and distributed community survey. Data walk participants included social service organizations, housing services providers, local government entities, financial institutions, health organizations, education institutions, religious organizations, and community members. CMCA facilitated a guided discussion about the data, resulting in the prioritization of housing as a primary need within Callaway County.
Community Conversations
With funding from the Missouri Foundation for Health, CMCA staff guided local stakeholders through a series of community conversations from Summer 2023 through Spring 2024 using a process called Results Based Accountability™ (RBA). These meetings resulted in the joint development of a community plan to address housing in Callaway County.
RBA is a data-driven, decision-making process developed by Mark Friedman. RBA uses a structured, step-bystep process called “Turn the Curve Thinking” to help communities move from talk to action and to harness the power of collective impact to make sustainable change.
Developing the Plan
First, the community developed a shared result statement that defined the outcome the community intends to achieve through the plan.
All people in Callaway County have sustainable housing to meet their needs.
Next, the community identified specific data indicators that will be used to measure the community’s progress toward achieving the result. Stakeholders reviewed baseline data that included forecasted data trends. In RBA, success is defined as “turning the curve,” or moving the data point away from that forecasted baseline, indicating that the community’s efforts are working and that positive change is taking place.
Community partners explored “the story behind the curve,” or the various factors that either positively or negatively affect the data. This discussion provided an opportunity to explore root causes and systemic issues that must be addressed in order for the community to truly make an impact.
Root Causes
Root causes related to housing in Callaway County include:
• Individuals do not know about housing resources
• Lack of incentives for landlords
• Landlords do not want to accept Housing Choice Vouchers or meet inspection requirements
• Tenants are not educated on their rights or responsibilities
• Cost of home maintenance for older homes
• Increasing rental costs; low supply - high demand
• Mental health needs/stigma
• Criminal background or history of evictions
• Lack of resources for addiction and prevention programs
• “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY) attitude leads to more division in the community about affordable housing
• Lack of facilities to support the homeless
• Lack of transitional housing programs
• Lack of financial education
Community partners explored existing efforts within Callaway County and collaborated to identify new strategies that would directly address the above root causes and lead to sustainable change within the community. The group ranked each potential strategy against four criteria:
1. How much difference will it make?
2. Is the idea specific enough to be implemented?
3. Do we have the capacity to implement the idea now or in the future?
4. Does the idea reflect our community values?
Strategies that ranked the highest on all four criteria were selected for inclusion in the community plan.
