Upstream Thinking: Built For Zero Initiative to End Homelessness
For so long, we’ve been a society that treats the symptoms but not the underlying cause. We spend billions of dollars every year on combatting preventable diseases like heart disease and diabetes, and taxpayers shell out $80 billion a year to maintain our prisons. Meeting our problems downstream means we not only end up spending more money, but we also end up suffering more on a personal level — roughly 40% of Americans over the age of 20 are obese, and we lead the world in most people locked behind bars.
Thankfully, the tide seems to be turning. More and more organizations are looking at the fuller picture, scanning their entire system from start to finish to see which areas are lacking and how they can be improved. Overall, people are starting to view their efforts through a more holistic lens, and no group has done this better than Built For Zero.
In 2015, Rockford, Illinois, became the first US community to reach “functional zero” for veteran homelessness, meaning the “number of veterans experiencing homelessness is less than the number of veterans a community has proven it can house in a month.” In 2016, Bergen County, New Jersey, became the first US community to end chronic homelessness, meaning that the number of homeless people is 3 or less. What these communities have in common is that they both signed on to the Built For Zero movement, an initiative started by the organization Community Solutions to bring a lasting end to homelessness. Built For Zero has truly pioneered a new way forward in the fight against homelessness, and since then, 13 more communities have been able to put an end to veteran or chronic homelessness. Today, 84 communities are pledged to the cause, and 45 of them have achieved a drastic reduction in their homeless population. One by one, Built For Zero is showing that with upstream thinking, even our most daunting societal issues can be managed, reduced, and prevented.
So how did these communities pull it off?
- Central Command Center
- Traditionally, groups that work with the homeless operate in separate buildings with different metrics of success. Built For Zero’s method puts all of these groups together under one roof with the common goal of reaching functional zero.
2. Make it personal
- The most crucial part of their strategy is keeping real-time inventory on the homeless population, including name, location, and history. Workers are able to become familiar with the members of the homeless population on a first-name basis, understand their personal struggles, and gather a full picture of their housing history.
3. Apply the data for a customizable solution
- The last step is to utilize this data to adjust the community’s response and direct resources according to an individuals’ particular circumstances.
In addition, Built For Zero encourages a Housing First approach, which prioritizes “providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, guided by the belief that people need basic necessities like food and a place to live before attending to anything less critical, such as getting a job, budgeting properly, or attending to substance use issues.” Amen.
With all facets of Built For Zero’s approach working together, communities have been able to see who is entering homelessness, who is coming out of it, and who remains without a home. The question workers ask in meetings changed from “How do we solve this headache?” to “A unit just opened up, can we visit Jimmy in the afternoon to ask if he’d like to move in?” Overall, this initiative took an enormous problem — one that seemed too big to control — and translated it into an actionable process with measurable results.
Getting to the root of homelessness will take much more time and work, but thinking at a systems level is a sure start. By taking a page out of Built For Zero’s book, perhaps we can reach lasting change in other areas of societal life that need to be improved.
-Marissa
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” -Benjamin Franklin
For more thoughts, check out my blog: https://marissastable.com and my new podcast: https://anchor.fm/marissa-larisa
