Hope
Hope is the only currency we really deal in. Not false promises. Not dreams of a better day. Hope is a nuanced belief that life is worth living; that tomorrow can be better than today; that next week can be better than this week; that next month can be better than this month; that next year can be better than this year. Hope is about leaning into expectation, while concurrently creating the reality of that expectation. To have hope is to take meaningful action toward a desire future. As a belief, hope requires us to move from a crossing of the fingers and wishing upon a star to doing the work to create the desired future we want.
Hope is difficult to quantify. There are not any reliable “hope” performance metrics. How many times did you help a family or person experiencing homelessness find hope? is not a common reporting question – nor should it be. Yet, if you don’t believe and support hope for every person you serve, you are likely in the wrong profession. You can’t say you support hope for some people you serve, but not for others. You can’t decide that some people are lost causes. The moment you think some people will never escape homelessness for stable housing is the same moment that you likely reached your tipping point of burn-out. Hope is essential for trauma-informed care and the spiritual scarring that comes with living through an exacerbated traumatic cycle. The impacts of the trauma may never totally heal, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to abandon hope or to think that recovery is hopeless.
Hope is one of the foundations of a recovery-orientation to this work. A future where people move forward from the impacts of their mental illness is one that requires hope. Reclaiming capabilities, rights, responsibilities, roles and the like will not happen without hope. Hope makes us champions of a future not yet realized. Ask yourself not only if you believe in hope – but if you are living hope. And if you are not, then time for deep reflection on how you put hope into practice.
The Three Metrics I Admire Most
When a community starts wondering what data to collect and look at when measuring progress to end homelessness, it is easy to generate a number of pieces of data that may be interesting to look at. Before you know it, there are over a hundred fields...the proverbial elephant being a horse drawn by committee. And what happens? The data does not get captured. Or it is inconsistently captured. Or there are time delays in data entry. Overall - a bunch of crap.
So if you want to simplify this - the Brown M&Ms if you will - focus on measuring three things really well.
1. How long are people staying homeless?
This is not how long people have been homeless and using YOUR services. This is not how long people are homeless from the time you connect them to a housing program until the date they move in. This is a measure of their entire homeless episode.
Once you get this data of high quality, then you can start to look at other factors such as whether household composition, age, gender, race, acuity level, place of receiving services, etc seems to be influencing whether people are having shorter or longer experiences of homelessness.
2. How many people have a positive destination out of homelessness?
What this really means is how many people moved into housing (with or without your help) or reunited to a safe and appropriate housing situation with a relative. Start by looking at the number of people. Once you have that data of high quality, look at the number of households (a family unit has more than one person). Then, when the data on the number of people and the data on the number of households is of good quality, you can choose to dig deeper and look at things like the size of the household, the composition of the household, demographics, acuity level, regional or neighbourhood analysis of where people are moving, which landlords or property management firms people are most likely to be housed through, etc. You could also look at what percentage of all people that were experiencing homeless within a prescribed period of time found a positive destination.
3. Of all those that had a positive destination out of homelessness, how many came back into homelessness?
You need to know the data from point 2 above in order to figure out the answer to this important data point. You want to know which people that had a positive housing destination touch the homeless service delivery system again, either through shelters or street outreach. Then you can go back to point 1 and look at how long people are homeless if they come back into homelessness. This would help you understand whether or not people are being rapidly re-stabilized into housing if they lose housing. You can also dig deeper to understand whether things like acuity level, neighbourhood they move into, composition of household, demographics, specific landlords, who the support provider was, etc. seem to be a more influencing factor in your community of when people return to homelessness.
10 Critical Questions for Every Shelter and Shelter System
At National Alliance to End Homelessness Conferences the past couple years, in our training and transforming of shelter providers and shelter systems, and one of the foci of our upcoming How to Be an Awesome Shelter Learning Clinic in Dallas, are these 10 critical questions that every shelter and shelter system should be asking themselves:
1. Is shelter a process or a destination?
When shelters are a process, the focus is on housing from the moment they show up seeking services. It starts with diversion. When that is not possible, there is unrelenting focus on getting people into housing as quickly as possible through self-resolution or through housing assistance programs. When shelter is seen as a destination, the focus is more on programming within the shelter that can inadvertently result in people staying in shelter longer – and sometimes becoming so integrated into the programming and comforts of shelter that they begin to see shelter a home.
2. Are the people getting access to shelter those that need it the most or those that were lucky enough to get it?
Many communities are starting to wrestle with this very question if they are integrating shelter access into their coordinated entry process. Homelessness has a longitudinal bias – the longer you are homeless, the better you are at navigating and surviving within homelessness. This includes knowing how the shelter system works, where to show up, and the behaviour expectations when seeking shelter. This does not mean the most acute are being sheltered. It means those that know how to navigate the shelter system are being sheltered.
3. Do we attempt to heal or fix people?
Shelters quickly become therapeutic incarceration when there are attempts to heal or fix the issues a person or family presents with, rather than focusing on housing. Remarkably imperfect people are fantastic at being housed. A deficit-based approach to shelter places the emphasis not on housing, but on things that are best focused on once the person or family gets housed, not before. Are some people or families going to need a lot of support? Yes. But thinking issues need to be resolved to get someone ready for housing is misguided.
4. Do we provide a social service? Or are we exercising social control?
It can be uncomfortable to look at the rules of a shelter and how they are applied. Why? Because you come face to face with the reality that while you often remark that you are non-judgmental, strength-based, person-centered, and/or trauma-informed, your rules and practices surrounding those rules prove otherwise. Compliance-based sheltering essentially says, "Act the way I tell you to in order for me to provide you what you need." As many shelters we have worked with come to realize, you can focus on six or seven expectations rather than pages of rules. And the good thing about expectations is that they are socialized rather than enforced.
5. Does the built form and layout promote dignity and decrease conflict?
Often the provision of shelter occurs in a building that was never purposely designed or built to be a shelter. And if the building was purposely designed and built to be a shelter, I often am perplexed by the decisions that are made which often have to do with what is easiest or best for staff – or the color palette or design features that middle class folk may like – rather than examining what trauma-informed building design tells us is best by way of common spaces, corners, lighting, color choices and the like.
6. Do we believe that homelessness should be short and non-recurring – and that shelters have a role in making that happen?
Too often shelters are seen – by themselves and by others – as a place of last resort. It is accepted as dumping ground for hospitals, corrections, older adult care, youth aging out of care and so on. If shelters really want to play an important role in a system of care they need to stop being anyone’s last choice or dumping ground. They need to own the space of being the place of first choice for people with a housing stabilization crisis as the premiere opportunity to become re-housed again as quickly as possible.
7. Do we restrict services only in limited circumstances, in a transparent manner, and for justifiable reasons?
The reasons a person or family can be asked to leave a shelter are quite varied, sometimes within the same community working with the same population group. The length of time they are asked to leave is also variable. It raises the question of why we are asking people to leave in the first place. Is it supposed to be punishment? Retribution? Rehabilitative? Will taking away a life necessity like the roof over a person’s head make them more likely to behave to your requirements in the future? What if their inability to follow your rules is because of a brain injury, mental illness, or chemical dependency? Sometimes the argument raised by shelter providers is that they have dozens of other guests, as well as staff that they need to keep safe. In other words, they are willing to sacrifice the one for the many. But where is that person to go? If they die tonight because of circumstances related to not being sheltered, can you live with that on your conscience? A high performing shelter system of care ensures that there are some shelter beds for those that would otherwise not be able to conform to behavioural expectations elsewhere.
8. Is there any group of people we automatically disqualify from services?
There is no shortage of exclusionary criteria that one sees in shelter systems across the developed world. Sometimes it is a family shelter that does not accept teenage boys. Sometimes it is a shelter that does not appropriately engage or shelter people based upon their self-identified gender, and insist on supporting people based upon biological sex. Sometimes it is married couples that cannot sleep in the same shelter unless they can produce a marriage certificate. Sometimes it is registered sex offenders or sexual predators. And so on. If not your shelter, where is the person or family you are excluding supposed to be sheltered? And where there are very practical considerations (like, say, a father that cannot be in a family shelter because he is a sex offender and would violate the conditions of his release by being in proximity to certain people), do you have creative solutions like motels that you can activate solely for that purpose?
9. Do we have professional staff with suitable training?
Homelessness is maybe the only industry where we continue to confuse a big heart with a big head – that somehow if you care enough you are qualified. The argument usually goes that somebody has to do something, and better that untrained but sympathetic people do the work instead of nothing. And then we end up killing people with kindness or incompetence. This is akin to me finding busy emergency rooms and going to practice medicine at those places, even though I am not a medical doctor, because the wait times are too long and there are people suffering. Other shelters hire people that once used their shelter, but with no additional training. The thinking is that these people are experts in homelessness and sheltering because they have been homeless and stayed in shelter. That is like me saying I am qualified and should be able to surgically remove your gall bladder because I have had my gall bladder out. If shelters are going to do what they need to do to help end homelessness, they need to professionalize their staffing with the right training.
10. Do we measure what we do and make refinements based upon data?
Only three measures matter in sheltering: how long were people homeless; how many moved on to a positive housing destination; and, how many came back. When we focus on things like bed nights or meals served within the shelter, we are focusing on the wrong things. The measure of a shelter is how the shelter ends homelessness, not how busy it was in sheltering.
Signs of a Bad Shelter Proposal
Recently I was asked to provide commentary on a new shelter being proposed in Florida. Shelters are an important asset in ending homelessness when they are focused on helping people get into housing as quickly as possible. Every community needs an adequate number of shelter spaces relatively to the demands in their specific community. And in this Florida community, they have woefully few shelter beds and definitely need more.
While some may argue that a bad shelter is better than no shelter, I do not share that sentiment. When there is a new multi-million dollar capital investment on the table, probably best that it be done right.
Urban Planning
Urban planning should inform various aspects of sheltering. Place matters. Shelters should be proximate to the needs of the guests that are using the shelter. One cannot be expected to work on housing goals out of the shelter if they are far away from where rental accommodation is located, and/or, when there is insufficient public transportation near the shelter. “Out of sight, out of mind” may be the position of the elected officials approving the shelter siting, but the outcomes of the shelter will be much worse if the location chosen is disconnected from the urban fabric.
Housing Focus
A shelter should have the staffing necessary to have a housing focus. This means diverting people from shelter when it is safe and appropriate to do so; focusing on self-resolving homelessness through housing, especially for those that have not been in shelter before; and, dedicating more intensive resources to help with housing through rapid re-housing or permanent supportive housing for those that are stuck in shelter. When you look at the staffing for a shelter, it is a cause for concern when the number of staff dedicated to security exceeds the staff dedicated to housing and supporting shelter guests.
Furthermore, one must critically examine any and all other services being offered at the shelter, other than housing-focused services. Community gardens, financial education and behavioural health services may sound good, but they can also interfere with the urgency of moving on to housing.
Trauma-informed Design
Spaces must be designed for the people that will be served within them. Trauma-informed design places particular emphasis on things like lighting, matte colours, and open spaces, especially hallways and transition points. The space should be as predictable as possible, avoiding sharp corners where people may inadvertently surprise or bump into one another. Spaces should not be confining. Noise should be muted through adaptations to the walls. Dignity is reflected in the care and maintenance of the space where people dwell. A space not maintained well or in a terrible state of repair in essence is a reflection of how the building operator feels about the person within the space.
Within this particular shelter in Florida, renderings provided showed no signs of trauma-informed design. More emphasis seemed to be place on utility than care of the people that would use the facility. When people have experienced significant trauma, shouldn’t we go to greater lengths to make sure the place they are being sheltered does not make their trauma worse?
Three Major Reactions to Change
There are a handful of communities where the three major reactions to change are front and center in my work these days, and probably a healthy reminder to us all of how normal these reactions are:
React to the change
React to the process
React to the person
React to the change
The ideas presented do not jive/resonate with those impacted by the change. They don’t believe the change will work or are extremely cautious. If they have even a toe in the water, they tend to want more information and/or the opportunity to talk to another organization or person that has gone through the change and come out on the other side. Note, when viewing others that have gone through the change, it often comes with critiquing or coming up with reasons why what they have learned will not work in their organization/community. Special snowflakes avoid the heat.
React to the process
The way the change is communicated, the steps taken for the change, and/or, the timelines for the change are what people take exception to, and that can come back to try and stall the change, or rethink the change. Ultimately, people are starting to wonder if all the steps necessary to go through the change and come out on the other side, are worth the pain of getting there…especially when they are acting on faith that it is going to work in the end. “So, what difference will this make?” is a real question…give up what I know that I may acknowledge is imperfect to work on something I am told may be better but I have no proof it is going to work? And, “If I do agree this is worth it, is this the best way to get there?”
React to the person
If organizations are onboard with the change idea and process – or have been going along with it because leadership or funders have required it – the last ray of hope is to react to the person. The person(s) are too outspoken or too soft spoken; too old or too young; too professional or not professional enough; too serious or not serious enough; too involved in the day to day understanding of the work or too much of an outsider to understand the day to day work; too data driven or not data driven enough; too much swearing and real talk or not enough swearing and real talk; etc. The person may represent to those involved a great facilitator or a weak facilitator; a charismatic person or a boring person; an authentic person or a poser; a great communicator or a weak communicator; etc. The point is, by the time it gets to a reaction to the person, it is not about the substance of the change or even the process, but personification of the conflict of the change to the person.
The first reaction to any change, process or person is almost always emotional rather than logical - important to remember that. We can think that logic and evidence will win the day always. But the truth is, openness to experience and each person’s moral and values framework inform how they are going to react to the change process. We discuss these sorts of things at the Leadership Academy, and cover these types of experiences at the Learning Clinics. There are no easy answers, but probably best that you deepen your understanding of how people respond to change so that you can help people navigate through the change.
Important & Ready
Whether you are trying to make change within yourself, your organization, or your community there are two critical success factors that must be addressed if you are going to achieve what you set out to achieve. The first is whether or not people feel the change is important. The second is whether or not people are ready for the change.
The importance of making a change is ultimately a personal decision, driven by our own values and beliefs, whether we are open to new information and methods, how we process information, and whether or not we are engaged in other ways of doing things we deem to be more important than the new proposed change. The importance of making change is not easily persuaded by logical arguments. In fact, the importance of change is felt at an emotional level. Take smokers for example. Some of the smartest people I know are smokers. It isn’t that they don’t understand the link between smoking and health. It is that it is not important enough for them to change their behaviour. Deep inside, the importance of change comes down to whether the gains of making the change are important enough to overcome the pains of making the change.
How ready a person, organization, or community is to make change is not easy to measure, per se, yet critical for the change to actually occur. We sometimes thing one more committee or one more study will make people more ready. Like importance, readiness comes down to a personal, emotional response to change. Am I ready to let go of the status quo when I am uncertain of the future? Even when I am sure the end result will have benefits, am I willing to go through stretches of ambiguity, frustration, and confusion to get to that place?
I would suggest that we need more conversations about how people feel, in addition to the conversations about data, evidence, and practice. I would suggest we need to create environments where people are free to express their emotions without fear of reprise. I think we need less coercion and a greater emotional appreciation of personal goals and values.
I would also suggest that when people raise excuses about why change is not possible we drive the conversation back to importance and readiness, even on an emotional level. Take for example resources. Many communities or organizations will say that they cannot change because they lack resources. But the issue is rarely one of resources and almost always one of resourcefulness. If the change is important and they are ready, they will find ways to use existing resources differently and problem solve to fill the gaps in resources that are necessary for doing the right thing.
Lastly for this blog, I would remind you that we should never underestimate an organizations desire for self preservation. Regardless of whether people within the organization can agree that change in the community is important and that the community is ready for change, they will go to great lengths to make sure their organization continues, even if they are not aligned to the new way of doing business. It is a classic case of the “yes, buts” – yes, we agree that change is necessary, but we don’t believe that we should have to change. This means we likely need to spend time ensuring all organizations are engaged with the importance of the big picture, and are ready to put their organization into the fray to be part of that change, rather than seeing themselves as immune to change and insisting others change around them.