Partnership to End Long Term Homelessness Announces Web Resource for Fighting Chronic Homelessness
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BOSTON, Massachusetts, May 1, 2006 -- The Partnership to End Long Term Homelessness today announced a new website for funders interested in collaborating and sharing strategies and best practices for fighting chronic homelessness. The website, www.endlongtermhomelessness.org, features a searchable knowledge center of case studies, best practices, data and trends in the field of chronic homelessness. Specific strategies featured include supportive housing, prevention, and the systems changes needed to bring about the end of chronic homelessness. Other timely topic areas include homelessness in post-Katrina New Orleans; housing for individuals with AIDS, mental illness, and substance abuse; and other related topics.
The Partnership was founded by leading funders across the country, including the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Fannie Mae, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Melville Charitable Trust, Fannie Mae Foundation, and Deutsche Bank.
The Partnership works closely with two key implementing partners, the Corporation for Supportive Housing (www.csh.org) and the National Alliance to End Homelessness (www.endhomelessness.org), which are leading a nation-wide strategy to end long-term homelessness by raising public awareness and creating 150,000 supportive housing units across the nation over the next ten years.
“Supportive housing presents a cost-effective solution to the seemingly intractable issue of long-term homelessness,” said Carla Javits, president of the Corporation for Supportive Housing. “Fast forward ten years. If we fully leverage the opportunities created by this unprecedented Partnership, our poorest, most vulnerable citizens will be living in decent housing with the support they need to be as healthy and independent as possible.”
“The site offers a common ground, a meeting place, for those who are currently funding efforts to end homelessness, or who’d like to learn more about effective initiatives for addressing chronic or long-term homelessness,” said Robert Hohler, executive director of the Melville Charitable Trust and a founding member of the Partnership.
The site will feature an ongoing series of Teleseminars led by guest experts as well as expert-led Blogs on topics related to ending long-term homelessness, including advocacy strategies, legislative updates and implications, and supportive housing do’s and don’ts. Selected highlights from the site include:
Read what leaders across the nation are saying about the fight to end long term homelessness. “We have to do more than just manage homelessness,” says Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago. “This plan… move(s) from a system focused on providing temporary shelter to a system that moves people quickly into permanent housing and provides social services to address the problems that caused them to become homeless.”
Read “Million Dollar Murray,” from New Yorker magazine by Tipping Point author Malcom Gladwell on the ‘power law’ theory that is behind efforts to end chronic homelessness, and why the homelessness problem may be easier to solve than manage.
Watch “More than a Place to Live,” from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the story of one man’s personal evolution from a life on the streets and prison to a job as a cook with the help of permanent supportive housing.
Join with other funders in this National campaign
"The time is right to take advantage of a rare consensus about the solutions to long-term homelessness, and growing momentum as the Administration, Congress, and communities across the nation have adopted the goal of ending chronic homelessness in ten years," says Nan Roman, President and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
About the Partnership to End Long Term Homelessness
The Partnership to End Long Term Homelessness was created to galvanize the philanthropic leadership and dollars needed to end long-term homelessness in America. Serving as an open knowledge network for funders, the Partnership shares strategic thinking, wide-ranging experience, and expertise to prevent and address long-term homelessness. The Partnership is based on documented research which shows that supportive housing and other related strategies are cost-effective solutions to long-term homelessness.
The goals of the Partnership are to:
- Generate the philanthropic commitment necessary to transform political will and policies, by leveraging at least $100 million in funding from other national and locally-based foundations, financial institutions and businesses
- Build 150,000 units of permanent supportive housing for the more than 250,000 long-term homeless in the United States, and
- Provide the services needed to tackle homelessness.
The Partnership website is available to all individuals with an interest in this area. Private foundations, family foundations, community foundations, corporate funders, businesses, and philanthropic individuals who are currently funding efforts to end homelessness, or who wish to learn more about effective strategies and policies for addressing chronic homelessness, are invited to join the Partnership. There is no membership fee for joining.
Press Contact and Additional Information
For additional information and to receive permission to link to this site, please contact Jason Born at 617.338.2590 or jborn@tpi.org. For additional background information about the Partnership and tips for funders interested in fighting chronic homelessness, see:
Nine Partners Join Together to Galvanize a National Effort to End Long-Term Homelessness
Ten Tips for Funding Efforts to Fight Chronic Homelessness
