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Learn More About: Functional Zero

BY JUDITH TACKETT

There is a lot of talk in Nashville about ending homelessness, a goal that many people don’t believe can be achieved.

I, for one, wholeheartedly believe that we can build a system that is able to end homelessness. The reason is that in an effective Housing Crisis Resolution System, we have ways to help prevent homelessness whenever possible, and when it cannot be prevented, people quickly are re-housed with appropriate levels of support services. In other words, ending homelessness does not mean that no one will ever lose their housing again. What it means is that we have a system in place that is able to move people who have lost their housing quickly back into permanent housing situations.

But we have to clearly be able to define what ending homelessness for Nashville means and once we reach that definition, we have to be able to measure whether we maintain that threshold.

So, how do we do that? By setting and meeting a goal of reaching Functional Zero for all people experiencing homelessness.

In 2013, Will Connelly who was then the newly hired as the director of the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission (the precursor of the Metro Homeless Impact Division), brought in a national nonprofit organization to serve as a consultant to help Nashville provider agencies set a goal of housing people experiencing long-term and mostly outdoor homelessness. That national organization was Community Solutions.

Since then and several campaigns later, Community Solutions has become a national leader that works with more than 100 cities and counties to drive down the number of people experiencing homelessness through an initiative called Built for Zero.

The initial focus of the Built for Zero movement was to help cities and counties develop a systems approach focused on chronic and/or Veteran homelessness. Nashville has been working with Built for Zero for the past few years to end Veteran homelessness. Along the way, Nashville has managed to significantly improve:

• Community collaboration;

• Efficiency in service delivery by de-duplication of services;

• Capacity to collect data and measure outcomes;

• Increase federal and local funding.

Yet, we are still far from reaching Functional Zero. For one, we are lagging behind peer cities that have focused on data improvement and systems building way sooner than Nashville did. And a major hick-up has been a lack of clear leadership, which manifested itself in a lack of support of local experts to focus on best practice approaches to ending homelessness at the community level.

But let’s talk about the opportunities.

One of the main focus areas of the Built for Zero initiative is to help participating communities with a data-driven approach. This is done by creating quality By Name Lists, which is a comprehensive list of every person experiencing community. Usually the By Name Lists — or BNLs — are collected for each subpopulation, which are divided in Nashville into Individuals, Youth/Young Adults (under 25 years of age), Veterans, Families, and individuals/families fleeing domestic violence.

A BNL lists every person in a community experiencing homelessness and is updated in real time. Information is collected and shared with people’s consent. BNLs help ensure people’s names are known and they are not seen as a mere number or data point. They also allow a community to observe and evaluate the changing size and composition of the local homeless population. And finally, let’s get to Functional Zero. As previously stated, Functional Zero was coined by Community Solutions to offer a definition for ending homelessness “that is clear, measurable and can be tracked over time.”

With that, Functional Zero is not a goal that is reached once, and that’s it. It is a goal that must be sustained in an ongoing way. The community will have to develop quality data (Nashville has reached a quality BNL only for Veterans so far). Based on that data, the community then calculates what the average housing placement rate is over a six-month period to establish a threshold it must stay below to continuously meet Functional Zero and declare an end to homelessness.

In other words, for Nashville to reach Functional Zero for any subpopulation, it must ensure that:

1. The number of people who experience homelessness is lower than the six-month average of positive exits to permanent housing.

2. The average time it takes to assist a person with permanent housing is 45 days.

3. No more than five percent of households return to homelessness within a twoyear period.

4. The community is actively working on racial equity, ensuring that minorities which are disproportionately affected by homelessness are not left behind.

Nashville is at a critical point where it must abandon status quo approaches and choose to invest in its people by investing in best practice approaches. One program alone will not end homelessness, but a coordinated, community wide effort will. We have shown in the past few years how far we can come when we focus on systems improvement and accountability, and we can do even better with new federal dollars designated to ending homelessness.