How a 100-day solution to homelessness could help Knox County

Several California cities have adopted a new approach to clearing homeless encampments that prioritizes housing over displacement, called Inside Safe. The model involves spending 6-8 weeks getting to know each encampment resident individually, matching them with appropriate housing, moving people gradually and minimizing police involvement. Los Angeles's Inside Safe program has moved 5,200 people indoors over three years, with approximately 25% securing permanent housing.

In response to managing the homeless crisis, several Safe Rest Villages have emerged throughout the city. These are small, individual units on city-owned land, separate from nearby neighborhoods. There are currently seven active Safe Rest Villages in the city and they have created 350 transitional housing opportunities for the local homeless population.

While any attempted solution to homelessness is admirable, it’s the ideas that include community that may be the most successful. This is the concept supported by Stephanie Sena, a professor at Villanova who has dedicated her life to bringing “best practices” of homeless communities to Philadelphia. Still in the early stages, this community model would attempt to beat homelessness by bringing people together - not only giving a roof and a bed. Ideally, the community aspect would make the solution sustainable.

Almost 4 years ago, Opportunity Village was established in Eugene. It’s a community of tiny houses for people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

The city of Tucson and Pima County are using a network of cooling centers, repurposed shipping containers and street outreach teams to protect unhoused residents and people living in substandard housing from deadly summer heat. The coordinated response, which includes trauma-informed staff training, heat-relief kit distribution, and an annual planning summit, is helping reduce heat-related deaths in the region.

NACDE Financial Services, a Native Community Development Financial Institution on Montana's Blackfeet Reservation, provides home financing to those who can’t access traditional bank mortgages. NACDC offers credit-building and home loans, first-time homebuyer education, and leverages relationships with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to navigate complex bureaucratic processes regarding homeownership. The nonprofit is staffed by community members who understand local tribal politics and court systems, and has closed 109 real estate loans since 2017 with a 0% default rate.

The Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas and its subsidiary Building Health act as safety nets for uninsured people experiencing homelessness by expanding the definition of healthcare to also include housing, serving about 85,000 people a year. By providing wraparound care and services from help finding housing to legal assistance and education, the groups’ combined efforts helped shrink the rate of uninsured, unhoused people from 16% in 2020 to about 12% now.

Various efforts to reduce veteran homelessness have worked together over the years to cut the number of unhoused veterans almost in half since 2019. One such effort is the VA Housing First model, which prioritizes finding permanent, supportive housing without conditions like sobriety. In 2023 alone, the VA placed more than 46,500 veterans into permanent housing.

Several community organizations and municipalities like the Office of Transgender Initiatives (OTI) have come together to decrease homelessness rates among the transgender population. OTI formed a Trans Advisory Committee which focused on budget and policy advocacy based on input from the transgender community to address homelessness and partnered with efforts like the Transgender District. All in all, these combined efforts have decreased transgender homelessness by 15% since 2019.

Efforts from the local Housing, Health and Human Services Center helped make Bergen the first — and one of the few — U.S. cities that have reached functional zero for chronic homelessness. Through providing counseling services and helping those in need access care and other resources like employment, the Center has helped several people secure housing, nearly eliminating long-term homelessness for veterans and those struggling with conditions like addiction and other mental illnesses.