“100,000 Homes Campaign Launches Effort to House Long Term Homeless

The fllowing is the text of Rosanne Haggerty’s speech kicking off the campaign. Rosanne is the President and Founder of Common Ground.

Remarks of Rosanne Haggerty

Founder and President, Common Ground

To the

National Alliance to End Homelessness Annual Meeting

“The 100,000 Homes Campaign –

Solving Homelessness; Saving Lives”

July 12, 2010

Thank you, Nan and Steve, for your leadership and for your support in

getting this effort off to a great start.

As you heard from Nan and in the video, the “100,000 Homes Campaign” in

its simplest form is a challenge to join our efforts together to house

100,000 vulnerable homeless individuals and families across the nation

by July, 2013.

But, more than that, the 100,000 Homes Campaign is a call to action; a

way for our communities and nation to recover a sense of urgency about

homelessness -to remind all of us that this is a critical public health

issue,  and  for some a matter of life and death.

The  “Campaign” builds on the ten year plans that many communities have

developed.

*         It builds on the extraordinary work of the extraordinary

people- many of whom are in this room-who are out there quietly

achieving heroic gains reducing homelessness.

*          It advances the new national strategic plan to end

homelessness.

*         And it connects innovations and leaders throughout the country

to achieve an ambitious but entirely achievable goal of securing housing

for 100,000 homeless individuals and families over the next three years,

beginning with the most vulnerable.

Why a Campaign? It is a way for us to harness everything we’ve learned

about what ends homelessness and to work together toward a clear

objective.  By using data to target our efforts, by focusing first  on

securing stable homes, and by connecting individuals and families to the

supports that will help them succeed  in their homes and

neighborhoods-we can turn the corner on homelessness.

Joining the Campaign means bringing entire communities into the process

of finding homes and providing support to vulnerable neighbors. –

hospitals, veterans groups, businesses, faith based organizations and

community volunteers. It means sharing what each of us knows,

encouraging each other, and celebrating each other’s successes as we get

the job done.

What makes us think that this is possible?

It’s been done before.

In 2004, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement challenged the

nation’s hospitals to join together to reduce avoidable patient deaths

by 100,000 over an 18 month period. By sharing innovations and

encouraging the adoption of best practices, the hospitals sailed past

that goal.

We can do the same.

We have modeled the 100,000 Homes Campaign on the 100,000 Lives

Campaign, and are grateful to have Joe McCannon and Tom Nolan from IHI

as partners and advisors in this effort.  They remind us everyday that

committed people like all of you rise to great challenges and accomplish

amazing things when given a clear goal and effective tools.

And I am also proud to tell you that we are already on our way.  Thanks

to the tremendous work of the 34 communities that have already joined

the Campaign and begun identifying and housing the most vulnerable

homeless in their communities, 5,104 individuals and families have

already been housed. Communities like Los Angeles, Denver, Phoenix and

Washington, DC  have generated and shared countless innovations and

shown us what is possible when we work together toward a specific,

urgent goal.

I want to thank and congratulate each of the communities who have

provided the core leadership and whose achievements point the way toward

what is possible. Can everyone who has been part of this effort or

completed a Registry Week to please stand and be acknowledged.

I also want to tell you a bit about how this all came together. It is

the story of a few individuals unleashing a grassroots desire to work

together in new ways to solve urgent problems in our communities.

First of all, you saw Becky Kanis in the video.  She is the heart and

soul of the campaign and has been the lead champion shaping this idea.

She’s been determined to find a way to end street homelessness since she

first started working with us in Times Square in 2003.  It is an honor

to be her colleague.

Our knowledge of the life and death nature of this effort comes from the

work of Dr. Jim O’Connell, of Boston’s Healthcare for the Homeless.  His

groundbreaking research on the causes of early mortality among the

homeless is the basis of the “Vulnerability Index” that is a key tool

for Campaign communities.

A special acknowledgement goes to Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who was

the force behind Project 50, a successful effort to house the most

vulnerable homeless in Los Angeles’ Skid Row.  His determination to show

that something could be done inspired other communities and was a

catalyst for knitting together these local initiatives into a national

campaign.

Ultimately, this is about people like Maurice Williams, whom we are

honored to have with us today. He now lives in his own apartment nearby,

having been helped by Pathways to Housing and the District of Columbia

Department of Human Services..  Maurice is one of the individuals

already housed through the Campaign efforts.  Just this morning, Mayor

Adrian Fenty announced that the 1,000th vulnerable household had moved

into housing in the District, setting an incredible example for other

Campaign communities.

To accomplish this, we will need new collaborations that bring together

all levels of government and all types of community resources. We are

fortunate to have Barbara Poppe’s leadership at the Interagency Council

on Homelessness, whose career has been all about these types of

collaborations.  I’m delighted to introduce Barbara,

This Campaign will also require us to reach beyond our traditional

partners in homeless services and join forces with others who understand

how homelessness devastates individual lives and communities.  We are

honored to have with us, colleagues from the United Way; housing and

health care organizations, veterans groups, the faith community and

business leaders, as well as longstanding partners like the Corporation

for Supportive Housing.  I’m delighted to introduce Deborah DeSantis of

CSH.

In closing, this is about all of us, and what we can do together. We

invite you all to join this movement.  All communities are welcome, all

partners are welcome.  To join, stop by the booth outside with campaign

volunteers;  go to the Campaign workshop tomorrow at 1:00; or, go to the

Campaign website,

www.100khomes.org

You are invited to join the weekly innovation calls, to participate in

registry events in communities across the country, and to be part of

something much bigger than our individual efforts.

In three years, when the Campaign comes to a close, we will have a

created a new reality.  We will see a network of communities working

together-unselfishly, resourcefully, relentlessly-to end homelessness.

We will see communities that are healthy, thriving and more stable

financially.  We will see 100,000 vulnerable neighbors safely at home,

100,000 lives changed, and 100,000 reasons to believe that we can come

together to solve the hard problems facing our communities and nation.