New Public Service in Action: The National Effort to House the Homeless

Deidre L. McLay

October 22, 2016

Abstract

This paper describes the national approach to homeless services by the HEARTH Act, the U. S.

Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the Monterey and San Benito Counties Continuum of

Care. It emphasizes how the resulting collaborative effort is an example of New Public Service

in action.

Introduction

The New Public Service (NPS) approach to public administration provides a framework

for reaffirmation of democratic values, citizenship, and service to the public interest. Its

practitioners want citizens and public officials to work together to make things work and to do

something of societal value (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015). The national effort to prevent and

end homelessness in the United States is an example of NPS in action. It embodies the

description of NPS from Denhardt & Denhardt (2015):

Government acts, in concert with private and nonprofit groups and organizations, to seek

solutions to the problems communities face. In this process, the role of government is

transformed from one of controlling to one of agenda setting, bringing the proper players

“to the table” and facilitating, negotiating, or “brokering” solutions to public problems

(often through coalitions of public, private, and nonprofit agencies). Whereas,

traditionally, government has responded by saying “yes, we can provide that service” or

“no, we can’t”, the New Public Service suggests that elected officials and public

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managers should respond to the requests of citizens, not just by saying yes or no, but by

saying such things as, “Let’s work together to figure out what we’re going to do, then

make it happen.”(86)

Government homelessness policy incorporates principles of public-private partnerships,

community collaboration, and performance measurement to pursue solutions to challenges that

are difficult to solve without comprehensive approaches. Homelessness is widespread and

caused by many things. There is no single solution to house the homeless, but many. By using

the team approach advocated by NPS, progress on ending homelessness is happening.

The lead federal agency on housing the homeless is the U.S. Department of Housing and

Urban Development (HUD). A major source of homeless services funding is the HUD

Continuum of Care (CoC) program. This paper will describe how federal legislation has

influenced the response to homelessness, what the HUD Continuum of Care is, its mandate for

geographic area-based teamwork between government, non-profit and private organizations

offering housing services to homeless people, the extent of homelessness in Monterey County,

California, and how the HUD Continuum of Care program has been implemented in Monterey

County, California. It will also comment on how the Continuum of Care model is influenced by

the ideas of collaboration, community involvement, and serving the public good that are

emphasized in the New Public Service school of public administration.

Background: The HEARTH Act

The Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act

was enacted in 2009 to overhaul the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s

(HUD’s) homeless assistance programs. It revised the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance

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Act which was originally passed in 1987 and updated several times since then. The HEARTH

Act brought the underlying framework into alignment with actual practice and prepared for

future development. The HEARTH Act codified a shift in emphasis from evaluating a group of

individual programs in a community to adopting a systems approach (Berg, 2013). The primary

systems approach for addressing homelessness in a geographic area is the Continuum of Care

(CoC).

The HEARTH Act consolidated HUD’s homeless grant programs by consolidating the

Supportive Housing, Shelter Plus Care, and Single Room Occupancy grant programs into one

grant program: The Continuum of Care (CoC) program. Local continuums of care are

community-based homeless assistance planning networks and they are the entities that apply for

funding from the CoC grants. CoCs had existed since 1995 and the 2009 Act essentially codified

the practices that had evolved over time (Berg, 2013).

As listed in the HEARTH Act Interim Rule 24 CFR Part 78, the responsibilities of a CoC

are:

1. Operate the Continuum of Care,

2. Designating and operating a Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), and

3. Continuum of Care planning.

Additionally, the HEARTH Act directs local CoCs to be involved in the coordination of

other funding streams and resources, not only CoC grants, in order to achieve the goals of

Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness.

Background: The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness

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Established in 1987, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH)

includes the heads of nineteen Federal departments, agencies, and offices essential to addressing

homelessness. The USICH staff itself consists of about twenty people (USICH, 2015).

The Bush Administration revitalized USICH in 2002 when it announced the goal of

ending chronic homelessness. The USICH staff subsequently encouraged communities to

develop plans to end homelessness in ten years and hundreds of communities adopted such plans

(Berg, 2013). In 2009, the HEARTH Act confirmed the mission of USICH:

Coordinate the Federal response to homelessness and to create a national partnership at

every level of government and with the private sector to reduce and end homelessness in

the nation while maximizing the effectiveness of the Federal government in contributing

to the end of homelessness.

Acting on this mission, Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End

Homelessness was first published in June 2010 by USICH. It was the nation’s first

comprehensive Federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness. The plan was amended

in 2012 and in 2015. In its FY15 Performance and Accountability Report (2015), USICH

emphasizes what it does:

…a model of successful interagency collaboration…and local engagement. Our ability to

inform Federal policy and to represent and communicate Federal strategies and policy

priorities directly to state and local stakeholders (sic). USICH does not administer

programs or have regulatory authority; rather, our tools for advancing good governance

are through innovative collaborations and strategic engagements that drive smart,

efficient systems change among our partners and stakeholders. Our focus on data and

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performance measurements seek to maximize several billions of dollars in targeted

homelessness funding by providing a foundation for evidence-informed practices. (4)

Application: Effect of National Level Policy on Homeless Services in Monterey County, CA

So how has activity at the national level affected local homeless services in Monterey

County, California? Is there even an issue with homelessness in Monterey County? One of the

most obvious local impacts of Federal level activity comes from the improved data collection

about homelessness in response to legislation that mandates a biennial-point-in-time (PIT) count

of homeless people on a specified day in January. The resulting reports on the extent and

demographics of homeless people in a given geographic area are useful for public education,

monitoring progress from count to count, supporting competitive applications for grant funds,

and for making decisions about allocating resources.

In 2015, the point-in-time snapshot counted 2,308 homeless people in Monterey County,

with 1,630 of them unsheltered. People in emergency shelter or transitional housing are

considered “sheltered” homeless. “Unsheltered” homeless are those living on the street, in

abandoned buildings, in vehicles, or encampment areas. The overall count shows a decrease

from the 2,590 in 2013. A follow-up survey recorded sheltered and unsheltered homeless, age,

gender, race/ethnicity, duration of homelessness, first time homelessness, health conditions,

incarceration history and use of services and assistance. It also counted subpopulation data for

chronically homeless, veterans, families, unaccompanied children and transition-age youth

(Applied Survey Research, 2015). All of the different pieces of information are useful in making

plans and executing programs to end homelessness. The data also show the wide variety of

people and circumstances that constitute the local homeless population.

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In 2011, Monterey and San Benito Counties merged their efforts into a single Continuum

of Care (CoC). Motivated by the 2009 HEARTH Act, the CoC developed a new 10 Year Plan to

End Homelessness called Lead Me Home (LMH) (CHSP, 2012). The plan was created with

input from local Counties’ Departments of Social Services, Behavioral Health, Public Health,

Public Housing, the Business and Civic Community, Law Enforcement, Justice, Community-

Based Service providers, affordable housing developers, and local elected officials (CHSP, CoC

Charter, 2012, p. 2). The LMH CoC is a year-round collective planning body of stakeholders,

coordinating community strategies, policies, and activities toward ending homelessness (CHSP,

CoC Charter, 2012, p. 3).

Another impact of the Federal legislation for homelessness is that only one entity in a

CoC can submit the annual application for CoC grant funds. The intent is for the local CoC to

prepare a regionally coordinated input that will result in more competitive applications, targeted

at priority needs of the local area. The Leadership Council of the CoC designates the

organization that takes the lead on submitting the annual application to HUD for CoC grants.

The choice for this role in the LMH CoC is a non-profit organization, the Coalition of Homeless

Services Providers (CHSP) (CHSP, CoC Charter, 2012). The choice of a non-profit in the lead

role is the most frequent choice nationwide, and of those, most are human service nonprofit

organizations vice faith-based nonprofits and church organizations (Valero & Jang, 2016).

The annual grant competition is complicated and requires a high level of coordination

and data reporting, so having an experienced organization lead the effort increases the likelihood

of success. The application includes sections on CoC engagement and coordination, coordinated

entry, process documentation, project capacity, performance measures, Homeless Management

Information System (HMIS) implementation, bed coverage, point-in-time count, strategic

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planning objectives, CoC policies and other written standards. In 2015, CHSP reviewed 14

renewal applications from transitional housing programs, rental assistance programs, and

permanent housing programs and assisted the applicants in meeting HUD guidelines for

submission (CHSP, Impact, 2016). On March 8, 2016, HUD awarded $1, 870, 864 in initial

funding to programs in the LMH CoC geographic area. (CHSP, 2016).

The planning, coordination, and educational outreach activities of the LMH CoC often

result in formal documents to establish policy and inform network participants. Often, the

documents are required to be prepared and shown as evidence to HUD that the local CoC is

complying with the directives in the HEARTH Act and CoC Interim Rule. Table 1 lists some of

the documents.

Table 1. Homelessness Services Documents

2009 HEARTH Act US Congress

2012 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness

Lead Me Home

LMH CoC

2012 LMH CoC Governance Charter,

Policies and Procedures

LMH CoC

May 2012 Homeless Management Information

System (HMIS) Governance,

Policies and Procedures

CHSP

February 2016 Monterey County Homeless

Services Resource Guide

CHSP and Community

Action Partnership (CAP)

September 2016 Coordinated Assessment and

Referral System (CARS) Policies

and Procedures Manual

CHSP

Ongoing http://www.chspmontereycounty.org

Various updates, training material,

documents

CHSP

CHSP: Coalition of Homeless Service Providers. LMH CoC: Lead Me Home Continuum of Care

Another result of the HEARTH Act is it is forcing the use of centralized data tools for

improving the effectiveness of homeless networks and for standardizing and improving quality

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of data collection and reporting. For example, establishing an HMIS is mandatory if a CoC

wants to compete for certain types of federal funds (CHSP, HMIS, 2012). Each CoC is

responsible for selecting an HMIS software solution that complies with HUD’s data collection,

management, and reporting standards. Through their HMIS, a community can collect

information on programs serving the homeless and use the data as part of annual needs analyses

and to establish funding priorities. Coordinated entry processes are required in each CoC.

Coordinated entry is a consistent, community wide process to match people experiencing

homelessness to community resources that are the best fit for their situation. People are entered

into the network at one participating location and do not have to travel to multiple locations

seeking assistance. Participating programs agree to accept referrals based on priority need

calculated from a standard triage assessment survey (CHSP, CARS, 2016).

The HEARTH Act incorporates performance oversight by the U.S. Congress by requiring

the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) from HUD on the extent and nature of

homelessness in the United States. The AHAR draws on data reported in HMIS and in the

annual CoC grant applications (HUD, 2016).

All three of these requirements, HMIS, coordinated entry, and AHAR, represent

centralized direction and guidelines, with decentralized execution that allows tailoring at the

local level, but mandates enough standardization to allow meaningful nation-wide reports and

comparisons.

Application: Homelessness Planning and Collaboration

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A key idea of NPS is to seek the public interest by building a collective, shared notion of

the public interest and creating shared responsibility (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015, p. 42).

Another key idea of NPS is to serve citizens, not customers.

The public interest is the result of a dialogue about shared values rather than the

aggregation of individual self-interests. Therefore, public servants do not merely respond

to the demands of “customers”, but rather focus on building relationships of trust and

collaboration with and among citizens. (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015, p. 42)

NPS emphasizes teamwork and advocacy and interacting with citizen groups as well as being

responsive to elected officials and legislation on how to develop and execute policy. By creating

the USICH and the CoC program, the HEARTH Act shows itself to be an example of NPS ideas

in a current response to an important public administration issue: preventing and ending

homelessness.

In Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, USICH

leads its list of objectives with the theme of “Increase leadership, collaboration, and civic

engagement”:

Objective 1: Provide and promote collaborative leadership at all levels of government and

across all sectors to inspire and energize Americans to commit to preventing and ending

homelessness.

Objective 2: Strengthen the capacity of public and private organizations by increasing

knowledge about collaboration, homelessness, and successful interventions to prevent

and end homelessness.

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The way the national strategic plan was created honored the NPS approach to public

administration. Input was gathered from over 750 regional and state interagency councils, from

mayors, congressional staff, local leaders, advocates, people who experienced homelessness, and

from many more. An interactive website gathered comments on the plans themes from the

public (USICH, Opening Doors, 2015). Clearly USICH considers itself a facilitator of a network

of concerned and knowledgeable partners, working together to determine and share best

practices to achieve shared goals. As President Barack Obama wrote in the 2010 edition of

Opening Doors:

And preventing and ending homelessness is not just a Federal issue or responsibility. It

also will require the skill and talents of people outside of Washington—where the best

ideas are most often found. Tremendous work is going on at the State and local level—

where States, local governments, nonprofits, faith-based and community organizations,

and the private and philanthropic sectors are responsible for some of the best thinking,

innovation, and evidence-based approaches to ending homelessness. These State and

local stakeholders must be active partners with the Federal Government, and their work

will inform and guide our efforts at the national level.

This is New Public Service in action.

By design, each local Continuum of Care is a combination of government, non-profit,

private, faith-based, and church organizations working together to address various facets of

providing services to the homeless and eventually ending homelessness. The LMH CoC has a

process for outreaching to the community, creating partnerships with key stakeholders including

mainstream agencies, and conducting annual strategic planning. They provide a large amount of

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information on the CHSP website, www.chspmontereycounty.org, making it easy for a member

of the public to learn more about their activities.

Conclusion

The response to homelessness by the HEARTH Act, USICH, and the LMH CoC illustrate

the principles of New Public Service as a collaborative effort between government and citizens

to address a difficult issue where public values are in play. An integrated approach to allocate

available housing services under specialized government programs to the most needy homeless is

a better way to operate than each provider acting alone. The Monterey County-San Benito

County LMH CoC is doing what it can with the limited resources in the area under the targeted

grant programs that serve specific subcategories of homeless people. However, the most

underserved homeless people are those without a special category (substance abuse, HIV, mental

illness, disability, veteran, mother with dependent children, youth) who are working or willing to

work or have some income, but can’t find affordable housing in the area where the job is! So,

the housing needs of “the hidden homeless” need to be solved through more efforts to create

affordable housing. Affordable housing is not a homeless service, but its absence in a

community will ultimately lead to more people who are homeless and who don’t qualify for

services under targeted programs. The public perception that all homeless have “something

wrong with them” should continue to be countered with data that accurately portrays the

categories of homeless.

Housing the homeless is an ongoing effort and more public discussion, more education,

more sensing and guiding community values, more exchange of facts about the myriad of

programs available, the gaps in services, and what can be done to add resources and adjust policy

to end homelessness is needed.

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Recommendation

Homelessness is a tough topic and communities need to keep talking about it and taking

action on many fronts to prevent and end homelessness. It is an example of an area of concern

that can’t be solved by government alone, or by the private sector alone, or by the non-

profit/philanthropic sector alone. All of the elements of the community must come together to

find and implement solutions.

As Katherine Theoni, executive officer of the Coalition of Homeless Services Providers

says, the greatest obstacle to ending homelessness in Monterey County is the lack of affordable

housing. “That realization is sinking in. We are working with county government and various

jurisdictions to start that work, but how we get from here to there is complicated, expensive, and

time consuming. And what we can do in the meantime is also critical to make sure that we’re

able to provide services to as many people as we possibly can in this community” (Evers, 2016).

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References

Applied Survey Research. (2015). Monterey county homeless census & survey. Watsonville, CA:

Author. Retrieved from http://www.appliedsurveyresearch.org

Berg, S. (2013). Policy briefs: The HEARTH act. Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development

and Research, 15(1), 317-323.

Coalition of Homeless Services Providers. (2016). Coordinated assessment and referral system

(CARS) policies & procedures manual. Monterey, CA: Author. Retrieved from

http://www.chspmontereycounty.org

Coalition of Homeless Services Providers. (2016, March 14). HUD awards almost 2 million

dollars for Monterey/San Benito county homeless programs. Retrieved on September 28,

2016 from http://www.chspmontereycounty.org/news/

Coalition of Homeless Services Providers. (2016). Impact: Highlights of our work during 2015

and 2016. Retrieved on September 28, 2016 from

http://www.chspmontereycounty.org/impact/

Coalition of Homeless Service Providers. (2012). Lead me home: The game plan for housing

homeless people in Monterey and San Benito counties. Monterey, CA: Author. Retrieved

from http://chspmontereycounty.org

Coalition of Homeless Services Providers. (2012). Monterey & San Benito counties’ CoC

governance charter, policies and procedures. Monterey, CA: Author. Retrieved from

http://www.chspmontereycounty.org

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Coalition of Homeless Services Providers. (2016). Monterey county homeless services resource

guide. Monterey, CA: Author. Retrieved from http://www.chspmontereycounty.org

Denhardt, J. V., & Denhardt, R. B. (2015). The new public service: Serving not steering (4th ed.)

New York, NY: Routledge.

Evers, J. (2016, April 19). Monterey county homelessness: Trying to define the problem.

Monterey Herald. Retrieved from http://www.montereyherald.com

Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing: Continuum of Care Program;

Interim Final Rule, 24 CFR Part 578, 77 Fed. Reg. 147 (July 31, 2012)

Jang, H. S., & Valero, J. N. (2016). The role of nonprofit organizations in homeless policy

networks: A research note. Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research.

18(2), 151-161.

U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (2016). An introductory guide to the

annual homeless assessment report. Washington, D.C.: Author. Retrieved from

https://www.hudexchange.info/

U. S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. (2015). Fiscal year 2015 performance and

accountability report. Washington, D. C.: Author. Retrieved from https://www.usich.gov

U. S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. (2016). Fiscal year 2017 congressional budget

justification. Washington, D. C.: Author. Retrieved from https://www.usich.gov

U. S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. (2015). Opening doors: Federal strategic plan to

prevent and end homelessness. (as amended 2015). Washington, D. C.: Author. Retrieved

from https://www.usich.gov

Homelessness in Seattle and King County by Jason J. Yergler

On January 25th 2019 in the early and frigid hours of the morning, nearly 1,000

volunteers from Seattle, WA and the surrounding area ventured into the city’s nearly 400 census

tracts for a specific count of individuals and families who are homeless. During this annual

endeavor, the volunteers attempted to count “tents, individuals, and vehicles that look like they

are being lived in,” (Walters, 2019). The most recent data available at the time of this paper, the

2018 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, indicated that over 12,000 people were experiencing homeless

in the City of Seattle. According to the All Home, the Seattle Continuum of Care (CoC)

organization, this number represents a total count increase from 2017 of 4% and a 5% increase in

the number of unsheltered individuals included in the 2018 PIT Count (All Home, 2018). Data

from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) indicates that

Seattle is ranked 3rd in terms of total homelessness with 12,112 individuals, behind Los Angeles

City & County, CA (49,955 individuals) and New York City, NY (78,676 individuals) ("The

2019 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress", 2018).

These data points alone are quite alarming and indicate that homelessness is growing in

Seattle and remains a huge problem for other major cities across the United States. The issues

surrounding and contributing to homeless are numerous, highly nuanced, and stem from a variety

of causes. The multi-faceted problem that homelessness represents affects everyone in the

communities where it exists and due to that level of impact, it is not surprising that massive sums

of resources are allocated to combating the causes of homelessness and supporting individuals

currently homeless or at-risk of homelessness.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkhan summed the situation in Seattle well earlier this year when

she stated that, “[e]very night, thousands of our neighbors sleep outside without shelter, in some

of the most inhumane and dangerous conditions you can imagine. While every single person

experiencing homelessness in Seattle has their own story, what is true across Seattle is the need

to help our neighbors move to safer places as we work together to build a better future for all

who call Seattle home,” (Homelessness Response, 2019).

Background

The city of Seattle and King County began to seriously prioritize homelessness as a

policy area around 2005 with the creation of a 10-year plan focused on ending homelessness in

King County (“Timeline: Understanding Seattle's homeless issues, 2018). The Committee to End

Homelessness (CEH) was established by King County to oversee the implementation of the 10-

year plan. The CEH included members from government organizations, private business, and

non-profit organizations. The CEH was renamed to All Home and issued the 10-year report

findings in 2015. All Home cited that the organization was able to end homelessness for almost

40,000 people and also acknowledged that the homelessness crises was still a growing threat.

Authors of the report provided a picture of the situation despite the successes of the plan by

stating, “[y]et, in 2015, on a given day, nearly 10,000 people are experiencing homelessness in

King County, and almost 40 percent are unsheltered…[p]eople are homeless on average for more

than 100 days, and nearly 20% of previously homeless individuals return to homelessness,” ("All

Home Strategic Plan", 2018).

The timeframe from the issuance of All Home’s 2015 report forward was marked with

some action from city and county officials but not to the degree needed to adequately address the

situation. One of the biggest developments concerning this time frame was the discussion

between the citizens and government officials over illegal encampments and tent cities that had

been popping up almost as soon as the city acted to remove them.

Several reports were published starting in 2016 that spoke to homelessness in Seattle

such as the Puget Sound Business Journal’s “The Price of Homelessness”, the Barbara Poppe

and Associates’ “Recommendations for the City of Seattle’s Homeless Investment Policy”, and

the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce in partnership with McKinsey & Company’s

“King County and Seattle Homelessness – Some Facts”. The reports added to the collective

information that citizens and government employees were using the frame the discussion on

homelessness. All the reports recognized that the situation of homelessness was complex and

required a comprehensive approach that the city had yet to take any steps to develop. In response

to the reports and the resultant pressure city administrators were under, the city and county began

to take steps that reflected a more proactive approach to addressing homelessness and an

understanding that creating a long-term solution would require additional study and partnership

with other non-governmental actors.

The most recent action taken by the City of Seattle in terms of the homeless problem

includes the approval and subsequent repeal in June 2018 of a head tax targeting businesses with

earnings of more than $20 million per year in order to fund a variety of programs geared toward

housing and support services for the homeless population. A major part of the city council’s

decision to repeal the tax was the reaction from local companies, such as Amazon and Zillow,

who advised that future investment in the city from the respective parties would be unlikely in

the tax was approved.

In December 2018, King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle Mayor Jenny

Durkhan announced a plan to create a unified approach towards combating homelessness in the

city with the cooperation of government leaders from Seattle and King County and leaders from

the local business and non-profit community. This plan was the culmination of a report

coauthored by the City of Seattle, King County, All Home, and a consulting firm called Future

Laboratories. Speaking to citizen concerns stemming from the oversaturation of piecemeal

homelessness plans previously espoused by local government leaders, King County Executive

Constantine was quoted by the Seattle Times as saying that, “[t]he criticism is always going to be

around whether we’re just rearranging the deck chairs…[w]e’re rebuilding the ship, we’re

creating a vessel that can better accomplish what we want,” (Constantine, 2018 as cited in

Coleman 2018). The decision to create this new agency arrived at an opportune time as the

Seattle community is growing increasingly weary towards the ability of the municipal

governments to adequately address homelessness.

In January 2019 The Seattle Times released the results of a poll conducted in partnership

with a Seattle based research company, Elway Research, that spoke to feelings amongst

Seattleites regarding how the homelessness problem can best be tackled. The report highlighted

stark attitudes of the public in terms of doubts expressed toward the ability of government

leaders to handle the problem with 57 percent of respondents citing “a problem with strategy or

government as the reason why homelessness remains so entrenched” (Coleman and Davila,

2019). and 68% of respondents cited a lack of trust in Mayor Durkan and the Seattle City

Council to find solutions (Coleman and Davila, 2019). Despite this ill regard toward municipal

leaders, a small number of respondents, roughly 14 percent, thought that the issue was

completely unsolvable, and some measures of the polling indicate that despite the frustration

among citizens there is still wide spread and robust support from the general public towards

prioritizing attacking the root causes of homelessness with 65% of respondents prioritizing this

solution vector. Finally, and most pertinent to the scope of this paper, the poll highlighted that

54% of respondents thought all levels of government and 35% thought the business community

should both be doing “much more to address homelessness,” (Coleman and Davila, 2019).

The agencies that represent the municipal structure providing the government response

towards combating homelessness in Seattle and King County are located in the respective

jurisdictions and include the local HUD Continuum of Care (CoC) provider mentioned earlier,

All Home. The main agencies housed under the jurisdiction of the City of Seattle include the

Seattle Office of Housing and the Seattle Human Services Department. The main agencies

housed the jurisdiction of King County include the King County Department of Community and

Human Services and the institutions that share jurisdiction include the Seattle and King County

Department of Public Health and the King County and Seattle Public Housing Authorities.

Lastly, All Home, is the Seattle/King County iteration of the HUD’s CoC program. The CoCs

“are geographically based groups of organizations that establish, plan, and coordinate local

homeless assistance,” (Continuum of Care, 2012). They are mandated by HUD in order for that

geographic area to receive federal funding to address homelessness.

The relationships between these agencies are characterized by a high degree of overlap as

city, county, and All Home all share responsibility to outline policy goals and establish the

strategic vision. Most of the operations concerning management of supportive function are the

responsibility of King County agencies, although the City of Seattle and All Home share some

administrative responsibilities. In terms of funding allocation, the City of Seattle and King

County agencies both share responsibility to manage contracts as well as track outcomes of

contracts, while All Home is mainly a coordinating body that exists due to the federal mandate

requirement. The government structures involved in the Seattle and King County effort to

address homelessness are numerous and overlap on several key responsibility areas. This

relationship between the existing governmental structures was also cited in the Future

Laboratories report as contributing to “minimized efficacy across systems and stunted progress

toward ending homelessness in the region” (HRS, 2018).

The potential to realize financial and effectiveness benefits when addressing social issues

through collaboration between public and private sector entities is well documented in the

academic literature. A helpful definition of this arrangement of actors is offered by Sandra A.

Waddock, “[s]ocial partnerships (PPPs) can be defined as the voluntary collaborative efforts of

actors from organizations in two or more economic sectors in a forum in which they

cooperatively attempt to solve a problem or issue of mutual concern that is in some way

identified with a public policy agenda item” (Waddock, 1991, pg. 481-482). Waddock goes on to

identify a metric that is used to determine what type of collaboration is best for a given issue

based on the degree of interdependence between the organizations involved and the level of

impact attributed to the issue (Waddock, 1991). According to this metric, homelessness would be

classified with a high degree of interdependence between organizational interests as well as

impacting mostly the institutional level of society. This nexus of a high degree of societal impact

and a high degree of interdependence of actors, according to Waddock, necessitates a “systemic

partnership” (Waddock, 1991, pg. 492). A systemic partnership is required when the issue at

hand is severely implanted in society. Speaking to the ability of systemic partnerships to

effectively confront prevalent social issues, Waddock adds, “systemic partnerships will have

greater long-term impact on social, physical, and administrative infrastructural support systems

that exist among organizations in society (and) greater long-term potential for solving difficult

societal problems” (Waddock, 1991, pg. 511).

Elaborating on the concept of exploring collaboration and PPP relationships amongst

organizations operating to address large-scale societal issues is Rae Bridgman’s take on the

application of PPP arrangements specific to the realm of homelessness. She finds that, “PPPs

amongst different privately and publicly funded organizations, and different levels of

government are recognized as a common strategy in efforts to alleviate homelessness”

(Bridgman, 2003, pg. 206) and that “public-private partnerships have featured prominently in

public policy and service delivery in Canada and the United States for more than a decade”

(Bridgman, 2003, pg. 209). When addressing a large issue such as homelessness Bridgman also

advises stakeholders to exercise sensitivity to important aspects of successful collaborative

relationships such as clarifying and aligning organizational goals, specifically outlining

responsibilities of partners, and sustained concerted approaches to ensure cooperation of a

multitude of agencies and organizations (Bridgman, 2003).

A 2014 report published in the journal Public Manager by senior administrators from the

United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) cited key characteristics of successful

interagency collaboration efforts. The authors find that “ineffective collaboration is at the root of

many of the issues…identified as high risk…additionally, collaboration is central to addressing

many of the areas…designated as being at risk for fragmentation, overlap, and duplication”

(Veale, Bulman, Beck, and Kiggins, 2014, pg. 47). Some of the identified facets of successful

collaboration efforts are ensuring accountability between partners and developing a process for

resource management. Veale and colleagues offer insight on the first characteristic by stating

that, “ensuring accountability across agency lines can be difficult because interagency groups

often operate without formal authority over participants, and agencies’ performance tracking

systems, processes, and procedure are often incompatible…one (effective) approach was

identifying and sharing relevant agency performance data” (Veale et. al., 2014, pg. 49).

Patrick J. Fowler and colleagues co-authored two journal articles that were especially

helpful in determining how to best design CoC governance structures as well as homelessness

solutions that are based on coordination between systems. Fowler and colleagues argued that due

to both the lack of a body of research evidence indicating best practices and the complexities of

coordinating/delivering homeless services across public, private, and non-profit organizations,

CoC’s may inadvertently contribute to overextending the ability to provide service and therefore

result in low quality service to homeless populations seeking assistance. As cited in the article

Capability Traps Impeding Homeless Services: A Community-Based System Dynamics

Evaluation, Fowler and co-authors add to the research of Repenning and Sterman (2002) on this

topic by recognizing “[t]he lack of an evidence base for CoC governance and planning may, in

some instances, lead CoCs to fall into a “capability trap” in which unreliable and ineffective

procedures and processes cause organizations to manage problems as they occur rather than

planning strategically and investing in procedures needed to improve” (Fowler, Wright, Marcal,

Ballard, and Hovmand, 2019, pg. 349).

Fowler and colleagues furthered their contribution to this area of academic literature in

the article titled Solving Homelessness from a Complex Systems Perspective: Insights for

Prevention Responses published in 2019 by publisher Annual Reviews. In observing the

potential for complex systems to inform a better approach to preventing homelessness Fowler

and colleagues offer “[c]omplex systems provide a critical perspective on the delivery of

coordinated responses to homelessness…[c]omplex systems are composed of multiple

interacting agents that produce nonlinear patterns of behaviors, and they continually adapt and

evolve in response to conditions within the system” (Fowler, Hovmand, Marcal, Das, 2019, pg.

475). Complex system principles of operational flexibility, responsiveness to data trends, and the

ability to provide tailored solutions to multiple stakeholders all contribute to help design an

effective collaborative relationship between service provides that operate to prevent and address

homelessness.

The 2017 Puget Sound Business Journal (PSBJ) publication titled The Price of

Homelessness is a compilation of research conducted by PSBJ staffers in 2016 and is focused on

the financial impact of the homelessness issue in the greater Puget Sound area. The most

significant findings from the report included an estimation of the total annual spending of the

greater Puget Sound region towards the homelessness problem of around $1 billion annually and

the widespread lack of communication between all types of organizations operating on this issue,

specifically cited was the lack of data both shared and available associated to the homelessness

problem. Emily Parkhurst, Editor in Chief of the PSBJ, found that there appeared to be space on

this specific front for the numerous local technology companies to partner with homelessness

organizations. Parkhurst offers that, “[w]e are paying far too high a price for homelessness…and

we have the ability to fix this…it will take a coordinated effort by government, nonprofit, and

business leaders to make any headway,” ("The Price of Homelessness ", 2017).

Conclusion

Citing Marsh (2013), Denhardt and Denhardt find that “public servants must join with

their counterparts in nonprofit and private business in order to solve problems that are simply too

large in scope and cross too many boundaries to be tackled by any single organization,”

(Denhardt and Denhardt, 2015, pg. 85). This understanding that collaboration between all sectors

and areas of society in necessary in order to effectively address entrenched issues that permeate

all sectors and areas of society is accurate. Further, the current status of the efforts to address

homelessness in Seattle / King County must be modeled after this idea as well the ideas from the

literature concerning the best orientation of partners configured to specifically address societal

issues such as homelessness.

Seattle and King County are home to many successful tech and other business sector

companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Zillow, Expedia, Starbucks, and T-Mobile. These private

companies offer operational capacities that must be leveraged for the scope of homelessness to

meaningfully decrease.

It is not surprising that previous efforts towards addressing homelessness in Seattle from

city leaders have not been effective as the governmental structures that share responsibility in

this area are disorganized. Furthermore, the literature review indicates that effective

collaboration is practical must-have when agencies partner together so that the negative aspects

of partnership such as redundancy and overlap can be avoided.

Recommendation

The following recommendations are provided for the key stakeholders associated to the

homelessness response in Seattle and King County. First, city and county administrators should

design a governance structure that coordinates all agencies conducting a major type of

homelessness response, such as the agencies mentioned earlier. Due to the HUD mandate

requiring the existence and operation of a CoC so that federal funding can be received, All Home

is well positioned to serve in this capacity either through legislative action to change the existing

mandate or other means. All Home can then serve as coordinating body for Seattle and King

County’s homelessness response. Secondly, the communication gap concerning sharing

operation and performance data is well recognized by the agencies and organizations mentioned

in this paper. Local tech companies must be engaged to leverage the technical knowledge that

they have at their disposal. An Atlanta based non-profit homelessness support organization,

Open Doors, partnered with Salesforce to create an app that allows for social workers to quickly

find available units that accept subsidy programs. City and county leaders should pursue similar

collaborations with the abundance of local tech knowledge. Thirdly, the patience of the citizens

of Seattle needs to be honored in a meaningful way. As the Seattle Times Elway Research poll

indicated, the public is still very much engaged in this issue in constructive ways. Therefore, City

and County administrators should electronically publish progress on major homelessness projects

currently underway and planned so that the public can remain engaged in a healthy and

supportive way.

Homeless is a complex issue that Seattle and King County leaders can attest to. Despite

the difficulties in permanently addressing the issue, recent research and technological

advancements are providing new ways to conceptualize the best approach to homelessness which

seems to be a collaboration between public, private, and non-profit partners.

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