Program Matters: How Far Do We Go?

By Senior Director of Programs and Operations Jeannine Short

 

In response to the Federal 10-year plan to end homelessness, Community LINC has realigned its programs and service delivery model with the objective of serving more homeless families.  To this end, we have adopted the rapid rehousing and housing-first models and their consequent paradigms…. Well, at least to some degree.

 

In general, these paradigms purport that: 1) homeless persons are more receptive to services provided in their own environment, 2) homeless persons need not be made “housing-ready”, 3) issues, such as substance abuse and mental illness, should not be barriers to housing, and 4) embraces a “harm reduction” methodology which challenges the rigidity of long-standing rules and regulations. While these models are gaining wide acceptance throughout the social service industry at large, the approaches are still relatively new and the long-term impact currently unknown. 

 

As a learning organization, Community LINC has done well to understand and even implement some of these new service delivery approaches. However, we have to ask ourselves the hard question of just how far we should go.  Do we incorporate the whole of these emerging paradigms because it appears that such will become future best practice? By doing so, would we on an agency level actually be embracing the “one-size-fits-all” ideology that the paradigms are designed to mitigate? If we exercise latitude in deciding what works best for our agency, will our services and methods be deemed antiquated and eventually become obsolete?

 

Program Matters: Are We Helping or Harming?

By Jeannine Short, Senior Director of Programs and Operations

 

As the face of homelessness continues to evolve from disheveled men sitting on street corners to entire families sleeping in cars; also evolving are the ways in which homeless services programs and systems are realigning delivery models aimed at housing the homeless more quickly, efficiently and effectively. 

 

Included in this realignment is the emerging “harm reduction” philosophy which focuses on the need for housing, rather than the reasons for homelessness (i.e. substance abuse, mental illness, etc.).  Too, it emphasizes the concept of screening homeless persons into programs, rather than screening them out.

 

While it is a reasonable assumption that social service practitioners would readily espouse these “housing first” philosophies, the challenge is shifting traditional mindsets which perpetuate the assumption that all homeless families and individuals must be made “housing ready” by “successful” participation in a myriad of interim supportive services.

 

While it is true that some would indeed benefit from such services, is it fair or even ethical to assume that one-size-fits-all?