The Plan
EveryOne Home, the Alameda Countywide Homeless and Special Needs Housing Plan, provides a framework to reorient systems of care in order to deliver comprehensive integrated housing and services for three vulnerable and overlapping populations:
- Homeless people,
- Low-income people living with HIV/AIDS, and
- Low-income people with serious or persistent mental illness.
EveryOne Home is similar in intent to plans being developed across the country, in which the emphasis is on ending homelessness rather than managing it and on permanent supportive housing as the solution for people who are chronically homeless due to physical and mental disabilities and behavioral dysfunction. It is a model that provides housing stability first and follows-up with necessary supportive services.
However, EveryOne Home expands on the national model by engaging the mental health and HIV/AIDS service systems to forge a comprehensive approach to increasing supportive housing. In fact, this is the first time that any county or state has developed an integrated housing and service plan for people who experience homelessness and/or are living with serious and persistent mental illness and/or HIV/AIDS. The plan is structured around five major goals that outline multi-faceted solutions for a multi-dimensional problem.
Alameda County has a history of collaborative efforts, but until now they have been focused primarily at the client or service provider level not the systems level. Alignment at the systems level will require an integration of county health, housing, criminal justice and human service delivery systems to a degree not yet realized, but the creation of an integrated, regional response offers such measurable outcomes as:
- Increased efficiency and effectiveness of local and regional housing and supportive service programs through sharing of information, planning, clients, resources and responsibility across the multiple systems that must work together to address common issues.
- More coordination of government and philanthropic funding. National research has demonstrated that an integrated approach to ending long-term homelessness can significantly reduce overall expenditures.
- Increased local capacity to attract competitive grants from federal, state and philanthropic sources that can augment existing housing and service systems and support the replication of promising practice models.
- Increased public interest and support for creative solutions to homelessness, excitement about and involvement in regional efforts, and willingness to support the creation of a new local or regional revenue stream.
The complete text of the plan can be read at Alameda Countywide Homeless and Special Needs Plan. Supporting data and detail for the plan can be viewed in the Companion Materials.
DID YOU KNOW?
In Alameda County, the estimated average wage for a renter is $16.83 an hour. In order to afford the Fair Market Rent (FMR) of $1,250 for a two-bedroom apartment at this wage, a renter must work 57 hours per week, 52 weeks per year.
National Low Income Housing Coalition
Q: Where can I view additional details about EveryOne Home?
A: The full plan is detailed here: Alameda Countywide Homeless and Special Needs Plan. Supporting data and detail for the plan can be viewed in the Companion Materials.