The Ten Year Plan To End Chronic Homelessness

Background

Research Team: Samantha Chrapkowski, Mailen Palacios, Yaihaira Villafane, Tim Sacerdote

Partner Group: York Street Homeless Family Shelter in Jersey City
Contact: Sue Byrne

Project Idea

In 2001 the Federal Government outlined the Federal Plan to end chronic homelessness in 10 years.

The plans calls for a wide range of government agencies and services to develop their own local versions of the program with an emphasis on what is called a continuum of care for chronically homeless individuals.

Sue Byrne and other officials from York Street are part of the team that is responsible for implementing the federal plan here in Jersey City.

Project Evolution

• As the Jersey City team moved forward they had some concerns:

1. The multi-agency nature of the program makes it difficult to know exactly what the plan should look like.
2. They wanted to know what other municipalities who have already implemented the program were finding in their self-assessments.

Phase I:  Fall 2005

As part of Professor Trillo’s Sociology 151: Social Problems/Homelessness course, Samantha Chrapkowski authored a paper entitled “Early Critique of Federal Plans to End Homelessness.” Samantha’s paper was the basis for organizing a more elaborate project in Spring 2006.

Phase II:  Spring 2006

• Sociology 448: Research Techniques in the Social Sciences

1. Content Analysis of:
   • Action Plans
   • Progress Reports
2. Interviews with Municipality Representatives where progress reports have been issued

Content Analysis

• The team collected and organized the following documents from various cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Norman, OK.
  • action plans—any document outlining a local governments plan to implement the program
  • progress reports—any document reporting a self-assessment of programs that had already been implemented
• The documents are being carefully read to establish common themes and other points of interest such as:
  • definitions of (chronic) homelessness
  • resources for implementation
  • continuum of care strategies
  • new and innovative ideas
    
  • implementation concerns

Interviews

• The team decided to conduct interviews because we thought it was the best way to obtain general responses from program officials.
  
• What successes have they had?
• What challenges they have faced?
• What concerns they may have?

Early Results

• Emphasis on continuum of care
  • Consistent discussions on synthesizing agencies and services
• Broadening the scope: Many agencies are using the same model to focus on all kinds of homelessness.
  • The federal government uses “chronic”. Which is actually small percentage of the homelessness population. 
  • This tends to a create the focus on a small segment of the homeless population.
  • Many agencies are responding to this by applying the comprehensive model not only to the chronic, but also the more transitory or situational homeless.

Next Steps

• Continue Examining Main Themes in the Action Plans, Progress Reports and Interview Notes
• Meet with York Street to Re-assess/Modify Research Focus
• Develop Report for York Street in Summer 2006