United Way of Cass Clay is partnering with the FM Coalition to End Homelessness to bring together regional partners and responders to address the growing homelessness crisis in the community.
Chandler Esslinger is Executive Director of the FM Coalition to End Homelessness. She says as pandemic-era assistance programs have ended, homelessness has been on the rise and reaching crisis levels. She says the current response system is overwhelmed – and there is a lot of evidence to prove it.
"As you are all aware, shelters have been at or over-capacity for several years. We know that our service provider partners have to turn more people away because there aren't enough resources to meet demand. The overall rate of homelessness in our community has increased recently. We know the public perception of safety has decreased. Utilization of emergency services increases when we see increases in homelessness, and we know that the mental and physical well-being of those experiencing homelessness declines when they are unable to receive the resources they need to remedy their situation."
Esslinger says these things lead to other consequences – as homelessness increases, shelter stays get longer, chronic homelessness increases, and the utilization of emergency services increases. The Coalition has joined with United Way to develop a regional plan to implement over 90 days that will begin to minimize the inflow of community members into homelessness, while maximizing the outflow out of homelessness.
Taylor Syvertson is Director of Community Impact at United Way of Cass Clay.
"This is the beginning of an important planning process in our community, and through the next 90 days we hope to establish a 90 day regional plan that will have short term as well as long term objectives and goals - so we're really building the foundation for our community to continue to tackle one day at a time."
Esslinger says partners will include landlords and developers, emergency services and response and other homelessness response system participants. She says the partnership aims to deepen the impact and outcomes that come from the partnership to reach people out of homelessness long term.