The Hampden County CoC will be deciding on September 19 if we will be part of the Zero: 2016 campaign.
The Zero: 2016 campaign is the national initiative to meet key milestones in ending homelessness:
- Zero veteran homelessness by the end of 2015, and
- Zero chronic homelessness by the end of 2016.
We all know that homelessness is not static, and that there are new people experiencing housing crisis and becoming homeless all the time. So what does zero homelessness mean?
The folks at Community Solutions (creators of the Zero: 2016 campaign have provided the answer. New guidelines released today help communities understand what it means to get to zero. Read the guidelines for more, but here’s the quick answer: the community is housing as many or more of the target population each month–on an ongoing basis–as the number of that population is counted on the night of the point-in-time count. So, if our community is housing 22 veterans a month and we count 17 on the night of the point-in-time count, we’ve reached zero. For people in the target population who become homeless, this would mean that, in general, they would be housed within the first month of becoming homeless.
Tomorrow (9/10) at 3:30 pm, Community Solutions will host a final Q & A about the campaign and the metrics for reaching zero. Anyone interested can register for the webinar here.
