OPINION: HOW HOUSTON’S HOMELESSNESS BREAKTHROUGH COULD BE A NATIONAL GAME-CHANGER

By Marc Eichenbaum and Michael Nichols/CNN/StyleMagazine.com Newswire

on reducing homelessness. Our collaboration includes using a centralized database to capture information and track the service needs of people experiencing homelessness and using a standardized assessment to determine which housing and/or service interventions best suit each household.

Second, we embraced the data-proven best practices of Housing

We should note that homelessness got worse here before it got better. In 2011, the Houston area had one of the largest homeless populations in the country. With the threat of homelessness only increasing, and dismay over decades of substantial investments without results, our community was propelled into action.

Since 2012, more than 28,000 people who have experienced homelessness in the greater Houston area have been housed. This has resulted in a more than a 60% decrease in overall homelessness in just over a decade.

So, what changed? In 2012, we came together as a unified, regional, homeless response system called The Way Home and chose the nonprofit Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/ Harris County as our lead agency.

Then we made three crucial decisions. First, we decided to work together as a collaborative system, aligned around a standardized set of goals, processes and strategies, rather than as individual organizations and government entities each trying to chip away at the problem. Today, more than 100 entities in the Houston area are working together and combining their efforts and resources to move the needle

First, a strategy focused on getting individuals and families out of homelessness and into permanent housing before helping them address any other problems. We do this via voluntary wraparound support services, e.g., mental health or substance abuse counseling, health care, job training and so on. The services help keep the person housed, and the housing is what makes the services effective.

Third, we housed the most vulnerable people first.

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You think I'd lay down and die? Oh no, not I, I will survive…” The lyrics to the song “I Will Survive,” which won the only Grammy for Best Disco Recording in 1980, could also be words written on the first page of Gloria Gaynor’s diary.

She’s lived that song. And there she was, after the premiere of her bio/ documentary Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive, singing on stage at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. A legend, icon and soul survivor watched her life story play out on the screen. She had to feel proud of herself and the audience was happy to watch her bask in the glow. Wisely, TV producer turned first-time documentary director Betsy Schechter doesn’t just assemble a photo collage and videography of Gaynor’s history. Instead, she also charts Gaynor’s