Onward!

Congratulations to the urban and rural communities that will now be designing and implementing demonstration projects!  A special congrats to Louisville and Columbus that are part of the 16 that have completed 100-Day Challenges on youth homelessness.

It is also exciting to hear about the determination to keep going from communities not selected in this round.  

RE!NSTITUTE stands ready to support communities on their journey to end and prevent youth homelessness.  We can do this in two ways:

• 100-Day Challenges
• Follow-On Support Programs 

Recent pieces from HUD, USICH, and A Way Home America have highlighted the impact from the 16 completed 100-Day Challenges on youth homelessness.  The Senate Report for the FY 2019 T-HUD appropriations bill (page 116) also supports the work of 100-Day Challenges:

Comprehensive Interventions to Prevent and End Youth Homelessness — The Committee recommendation includes $80,000,000 to continue implementation of comprehensive approaches to serving homeless youth, of which up to $5,000,000 shall be used to provide technical assistance to grantees. The Committee applauds HUD’s decision to use a portion of its technical assistance funding to support the 100-Day Challenge Initiative, a program that helps communities accelerate efforts to prevent and end youth homelessness. By offering local service providers the opportunity to come together to identify impediments and establish goals, the 100-Day Challenge leaves communities better prepared to confront youth homelessness in a comprehensive manner. The program also lays the groundwork for participants seeking to apply for a Youth Homelessness Demonstration Grant award.

The community teams achieved significant results and tested new tools and strategies.  And there have been noticeable shifts in mindsets, relationships, and policies, indicating that local system are being transformed.

LAUNCHING A 100-DAY CHALLENGE

If you are interested in building the momentum started through the YHDP process, contact us. We are happy to explore how we can support you to embark on a 100-Day Challenge.  

FOLLOW-ON SUPPORT AFTER THE 100-DAY CHALLENGE

The initial 100-Day Challenge sets the stage for moving towards preventing and ending youth homelessness in your community.  It takes persistence, determination, and organization to continue working together to innovate, learn, and execute to get there.  Doing this over the long haul can be tough. To support you on this journey, RRI Catalysts will work with community leaders to embed what is working and to create and nurture a structure to keep collaborating, innovating, and executing. Contact us to discuss where you are, what you need, and the support programs we offer.  

At RE!NSTITUTE, we know that planning is important, but that planning alone doesn’t generate solutions.  Action does - action in rapid cycles that include aiming for clear short-term goals while experimenting, implementing, failing, and learning.  Such action makes planning so much better. Therefore, as more and more communities explore this work, how can we supplement planning with executing? Whenever we hear the word “plan,” we encourage it to be quickly followed up with “execute,” “test,” “experiment,” or “DO!”  How about convening community planning AND executing team, launching planning AND rapid testing experiments, and holding planning AND doing meetings?  

ONWARD!