Our Plan Forward

Transition from Managing Homelessness to Ending Homelessness

Homelessness is devastating. Every person deserves a safe place to live and the opportunity to thrive. Achieving this requires a strong community safety net and strategies aimed at preventing low-income households from becoming homeless, quickly rehousing people experiencing homelessness, and removing the barriers that lead to repeat episodes of homelessness. Tucson’s homeless response system possesses many of the essential elements of an effective system. However, there are many opportunities to improve its efficiency and impact.

Goal 1: Provide stable, accessible housing or shelter with a “Housing First” approach; housing that has no or few barriers to entry for those experiencing homelessness

• Optimize occupancy of existing shelter space
• Increase supply of longer-term supportive housing beds
• Strengthen coordination and collaboration of existing street outreach services and increase outreach capacity within the community
• Expand housing navigation services to leverage stable housing options outside of traditional shelter and housing programs

Goal 2: Coordinate a continuum of services to enable vulnerable populations to access and remain in stable housing with pathways to self-sufficiency

• Prioritize input and leadership among individuals with lived experience of homelessness when designing, providing, and evaluating services
• Expand homeless work programs and bridges to direct employment
• Expand support services that align with the Housing First model and result in self-sufficiency and improved quality of life (e.g. health care, food, substance abuse, behavioral health services, etc.)

Goal 3: Prevent Homelessness

• Identify and target vulnerable households for eviction prevention and other interventions to prevent loss of shelter
• Make resources available to quickly address emergency needs that will prevent households from losing shelter
• Prioritize homelessness prevention funding to organizations that offer the full scope of needed services beyond traditional case management to include housing counseling, legal services, credit repair/counseling, landlord mediation, and sufficient financial assistance to support stabilization credit repair/counseling, landlord mediation, and sufficient financial assistance to support stabilization

Goal 4: Support an efficient and effective services system based on evidence and data

• Support Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness in their efforts to improve coordinated entry and assessment
• Improve accuracy of annual Point-in-Time counts of all persons experiencing homelessness, including youth and families
• Improve access to and utilization of real-time crisis housing bed availability and services to address urgent housing needs of people at risk of and experiencing homelessness
• Expand training and technical assistance offerings to better support use of evidence-based practices and other improvements to community housing and homelessness outcomes

Goal 5: Increase collaboration, transparency, and access to public information in the region’s homelessness response

• Develop and implement a homelessness communications plan in partnership with community organizations and target populations to provide more better and more consistent information to the public regarding homelessness concerns and response
• Improve coordination among homeless response funding bodies and collaborative community planning to more efficiently address homelessness