BID Releases Homelessness Leadership Paper

Release Date: Wednesday, October 8th 2008

Homelessness in Downtown DC has taken a front-page position with Franklin School’s closing, making the Downtown BID’s release of a new Leadership Paper, Homelessness Downtown: Moving People from the Street to Independence, all the more timely. The paper highlights innovative efforts to move people beyond homelessness and shelters and into permanent housing and focuses on the Downtown Homeless Services Team, a six-person homeless outreach team and the only non-governmental, clinically based service for the chronically homeless in DC. Read more.

The Downtown Homeless Services Team engages with homeless people every day in the community by building relationships, assessing their needs and connecting them to support services and housing. The team has helped to place more than 70—including men from Franklin—in permanent supportive housing over the past year.

The Downtown BID, the DC government and nonprofit organizations are working to find innovative solutions to end homelessness in Downtown and throughout the city. The Downtown BID’s most recent Leadership Paper highlights the systematic shift from the conventional social service treatment-based model to a “Housing First” model that favors moving chronically homeless persons from the streets and shelters into independent housing, and providing comprehensive services to address their needs.

The paper also details how the Downtown BID is developing an effective system to address homelessness and has identified seven elements critical to its success:
    1) Outreach Services
    2) Social Services and Mental Health Programs
    3) Shelters
    4) Street Food Programs
    5) Education
    6) Housing
    7) Funding

Click here to access Homelessness Downtown: Moving People from the Street to Independence.