We’ve Got the Model
As a community-wide initiative, Albuquerque Heading Home now provides the momentum and implementation structure for eliminating homelessness.
Through community engagement across public and private sectors, Albuquerque Heading Home shapes use of existing and future resources for addressing homelessness to emphasize immediate housing, supportive services and policy changes that designed for maximum long-term integration into community for the most vulnerable.
Mobilization and realignment of community resources will require us to unite around shared goals. It will require prioritized funding allocation, and a commitment to change in both practice and policy.
This is the major, community-wide paradigm shift envisioned by Albuquerque Heading Home.
Once complete, we will see that:
- Overall, fewer people in our community will experience homelessness at any given time. (reduced incidence/prevalence of homelessness)
- People who do experience homelessness in Albuquerque experience it for shorter periods and less frequently, reducing the trauma of survival on the streets. (reduced duration and recurrence)
- The high financial cost burden of maintaining homelessness in our community will be replaced by investment in support for high quality of life and health and wellbeing for all, as Albuquerque experiences cost savings measurable over time through this initiative.
Three central organizing principles set the framework for Albuquerque Heading Home.
- Housing First: Posits that the first step in addressing homelessness is to house people – first. Their biggest risk factor is lack of a place to call home. Health services and social support are more effective and have a better chance of improving a person’s well-being if that person is housed. Behavior change and health improvement without a home are nearly impossible for those who have lived chronically homeless.
- Collective Impact: Solves complex issues through shared goals and measures, through cross-sector alignment of public and private sectors as essential partners and coordinates action and lessons learned for improved strategies. Systems and broad community change cannot occur as long as organizations and institutions work in isolated ways, competing for scarce resources.
- Philanthropic Alignment and Parallel Not-for-Profit Collaboration: Urges philanthropists to commit to redirection of giving toward concrete not-for-profit commitment to collaboration around collective impact.
