30 days in, United Way of Cass Clay and the FM Coalition to End Homelessness are encouraged by their progress to engage community partners in solving the community’s homelessness crisis.
In December, they presented their ideas to the Fargo City Commission – which included benchmarks to meet at 30 days, 60 days and 90 days to begin to set in motion long term solutions. Their 30 day objectives were to identify and connect key partners, identify financial resources, and establish a cross-sector advisory group. Over the next 30 days, they plan to set more long term goals – along with setting up funding, admin supports, and getting housing stakeholders involved in what needs to be done to move people into housing.
Chandler Esslinger is Executive Director for the FM Coalition to End Homelessness. She says when Bloomberg Associates’ Linda Gibbs said last week that the Fargo-Moorhead community was well equipped to solve homelessness, she was encouraged, but also agreed.
"The amount of enthusiasm there is to do something - and not just DO something, but do something we know is going to work - there's plenty of things that maybe we could be stressed out about or fearful for, or all those different things. But I'm more focused on the strengths of our community, the momentum we have on really solving for this issue, and just all the incredible service providers we have that have dedicated their life to this work and just capitalizing on that enthusiasm that we have for doing something to make our community a place where everybody has a place to belong, and a place to live."
Taylor Syvertson is Director of Community Impact with United Way of Cass Clay. She says while for right now, they are focused on shorter term goals – they have the bigger picture further down the road in mind.
"Homelessness is complex, and the solutions that our community needs are systemic solutions, system-wide cooperation and collaboration. This isn't going to be something we've completed in 90 days, certainly there will be some things we will achieve in that time frame - but this is part of systems change. How do we as a community and all of the agencies involved in supporting people, and parts of our community - how do we work better together."
Some longer term goals include preventing the return of homeless camps through targeted outreach, and case management for people who experience chronic homelessness – as well as preventing people from entering homelessness in the first place.