Highlighting Local Innovations Addressing Homelessness

Lance Gilliam

Former Chairman, The Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County

📍Houston, TX

The Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County serves as the lead agency in the city’s continuum of care. Over the last decade, the Coalition has collaborated with local service providers, corporations and charitable nonprofits to move over 25,000 unhoused people into permanent housing with supportive services. Under the Coalition’s leadership, the city of Houston’s homelessness population has decreased by 60% since 2011.

Houston’s success in reducing homelessness – and particularly veteran homelessness – has involved leveraging housing vouchers, HUD-VA Supportive Housing Vouchers (HUD-VASH) and other federal funding and programs to achieve meaningful progress, providing a model for other large cities across the country.

Carolyn Ross

President and CEO, All Chicago

📍Chicago, IL

All Chicago Making Homelessness History focuses on providing financial assistance to help families in Chicago who are experiencing an emergency that could lead to homelessness. They have also engaged in numerous community partnerships to reduce homelessness across the city and provide data analytics to evaluate programs and track Chicago’s progress towards its homelessness reduction goals. The organization provides training and research to its partners, granting stakeholders tools to address homelessness more effectively.

As the lead organization in Chicago’s continuum of care, All Chicago is a recipient of a $60 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) aimed at developing a comprehensive plan to address unsheltered homelessness. Their plan to strengthen outreach, provide rapid access to permanent housing, and increase the availability of supportive services using HUD funds showcases how the federal government can provide resources to scale up local initiatives for tackling homelessness.

Preston Cochrane

CEO, The Other Side Village

📍Salt Lake City, UT

In October 2022, Salt Lake City’s city council voted to advance a project to build a community of tiny homes for people experiencing chronic homelessness. The city sought out the collaboration of the Other Side Academy, a nonprofit that runs transitional programs for people exiting the criminal justice system, which laid the ground for the Other Side Village project.

The Other Side Village is a planned community which will eventually provide 430 tiny homes (each approximately 400 square feet) for people coming out of chronic homelessness. However, the organization is not merely a housing provider — the village will also include supportive social and medical services and recreational activities and will work to foster a culture of “personal growth, support, and connection” among its residents to assist them in transitioning out of homelessness. Residents will be required to follow community rules, including a ban on drug use and keeping a clean home.

While initial support will come from private donations and public funds from city, county and state governments, the project plans to reach financial self-sufficiency through its social enterprises and retail activities – which also employ residents. It aims to serve as a model for other cities and illustrate a self-sustaining approach to developing a supportive housing community for the chronically unhoused.

Chris Contreras

Chief Programs Officer, Brilliant Corners

📍 San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, and San Diego, CA

Brilliant Corners provides supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness, including youth, families, seniors, and veterans. Brilliant Corners’ view of supportive housing combines affordable housing with voluntary services like health care, workforce development, child welfare, and intensive case management.

In partnership with the LA County Department of Health Services, Brilliant Corners operates the public-private partnership Los Angeles County Flexible Housing Subsidy Pool—a first-of-its-kind supportive housing rent subsidy program that has facilitated housing placements for roughly 10,500 people since its launch in 2014. By building and sustaining partnerships with local governments, landlords and developers, Brilliant Corners provides a model for building new, scalable supportive housing platforms to address homelessness.