Mecklenburg County Community Support Services releases today the 2020 Charlotte-Mecklenburg State of Housing Instability & Homelessness (SoHIH) Report. The SoHIH report is part of the annual Housing Instability & Homelessness Report series which is funded by Mecklenburg County Community Support Services and produced by UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. The 2020 SoHIH provides a single, dedicated compilation of all the latest data on housing instability and homelessness pertaining to Charlotte-Mecklenburg. This resource can be used by any and all stakeholders working to address housing instability and homelessness. The annual report combines local, regional, and national data on the full housing continuum (from housing instability to homelessness), and stable (permanent, affordable) housing. The report features data from the 2020 Point-in-Time Count; housing inventory and rental gaps; Housing Trust Fund; and system performance metrics. This blog post outlines the key findings from the 2020 SoHIH and what it could mean for Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
On Thursday, September 24, 2020, Mecklenburg County Community Support Services will release the 2020 Charlotte-Mecklenburg State of Housing Instability & Homelessness (SoHIH) Report. The SoHIH report is part of the annual Housing Instability & Homelessness Report series which is funded by Mecklenburg County Community Support Services and produced by UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. The SoHIH is an annual report that provides a single, “go-to” document for all housing and homelessness-related data and information pertaining to Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The report combines local, regional, and national data on the full housing continuum, including housing instability, homelessness, and stable (permanent, affordable) housing. The report also features data from the 2020 Point-in-Time Count; housing inventory and rental gaps information; Housing Trust Fund; and system performance metrics. This blog post describes what is covered in the 2020 SoHIH, including what’s new, and what it could mean for Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
On August 27, 2020, the Building Bridges blog post shared the most recent Housing Data Snapshot, including a high-level overview of the latest trends. The Housing Data Snapshot has three main sections: the One Number (total number of people actively experiencing homelessness); By-Name List breakdowns from the One Number for veteran and chronic homelessness (inflow, outflow and housing trends); and Coordinated Entry data (total number of callers and assessments seeking housing assistance). Considered together, the Housing Data Snapshot provides the most up-to-date information on housing and homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. This week’s blog post will take a deeper dive into the August 2020 data update; explain any trends; and discuss possible implications for Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
Housing First Charlotte-Mecklenburg (HFCM) was launched in 2015 to end chronic homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg by scaling housing first, particularly the housing first permanent supportive housing model. Housing first programs prioritize housing as an early step in service delivery, have low-barrier admissions policies, maximize client choice in housing and services, use a harm reduction approach to substance use and other personal challenges, and do not require service compliance or success in order for a tenant to maintain housing. The multi-sector collaborative effort included stakeholders from homeless services, local government, nonprofits, and the business community. Today, the HFCM research team from UNC Charlotte, in partnership with Roof Above and Mecklenburg County, released the first of two summary reports from the multi-year research and evaluation project examining the effort. The Housing First Charlotte-Mecklenburg (HFCM) Process Evaluation Report summarizes findings about how the multi-sector collaboration to end chronic homelessness was implemented. This blog post will highlight some of the key findings from the report and what they could mean for Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
Each month, Mecklenburg County Community Support Services updates the Housing Data Snapshot, a hub for the latest numbers related to housing and homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Housing Data Snapshot has three main sections: the One Number (total number of people actively experiencing homelessness); By-Name List breakdowns from the One Number for veteran and chronic homelessness (inflow, outflow and housing trends); and Coordinated Entry (total number of callers and assessments seeking housing assistance). Considered together, the Housing Data Snapshot provides the most up-to-date information on housing and homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. This week’s blog post will unpack the latest One Number data update to the Housing Data Snapshot and describe trends. A future blog post will seek to explain these trends and what they could mean for Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
The problem of housing instability and homelessness has taken center stage in Charlotte-Mecklenburg amidst an unabated pandemic. Reports of increases in homeless encampments and families with children paying week-to-week to stay in hotels are stark evidence of a worsening crisis. In the health and safety interests of families and the entire community, there is an evident and urgent need to address the lack of available and affordable permanent housing. Historically, communities have focused on sheltering and re-housing people experiencing homeless as quickly as possible. This makes sense: access to sustainable, permanent housing is the antidote to homelessness. However, we know little about the effectiveness of community systems, structures, and resources in helping households that are precariously housed avoid homelessness in the first place. In May 2020, Mecklenburg County Community Support Services launched a community project called “Evaluate Upstream: Optimizing the Homelessness Prevention Assistance System” focused on homelessness prevention. The project is funded by a Continuum of Care (CoC) planning grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The goals of the project are to document existing prevention resources across Charlotte-Mecklenburg and determine whether and how they work together; to design an optimally functioning prevention network; and to develop an evaluation framework for a homelessness prevention system that is truly impactful in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. This blog post will share in-depth information and updates about the planning grant project; it will also describe the project’s unique approach to the work and what it could mean for Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
When asked to describe the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing & Homelessness Dashboard, I often start with, “Well, the Dashboard is really more than just a ‘dashboard.’” The word “dashboard” has always conjured for me static images of widgets in quadrants. But, as the Housing & Homelessness Dashboard has evolved, we learned that dashboards can be dynamic; they can provide an “at-a-glance” view of key indicators; and, like the dashboard of a vehicle, contain the instruments and controls needed to drive where you want to go. In that sense, “dashboard” has become the perfect name to encapsulate what it does. And, it still is more than just a dashboard. Mecklenburg County Community Support Services (CSS) launched the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing & Homelessness Dashboard in August 2017. The Housing & Homelessness Dashboard was developed in partnership with the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. One goal of the Housing & Homelessness Dashboard is to provide a dedicated “hub” for all housing and homelessness related information, research and data pertaining to Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Since its release in 2017, the Housing & Homelessness Dashboard has expanded and to integrate new content and features. There have been over 20,000 users with 83,000 page views. We have published over 100 blog posts. And, it is still growing and changing. This blog post will highlight just a few of the key additions to the Housing & Homelessness Dashboard over the past three years. It will also provide a glimpse of what is to come, and how these planned changes could help drive Charlotte-Mecklenburg forward.
Each year, Mecklenburg County Community Support Services (CSS) releases an annual report series on housing instability and homelessness. The report series is produced by the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. There are two primary output models. The first type, referred to as “integrated data” reports, links and contextualizes disparate information sources to explore the problem of housing instability and/or homelessness through a unique lens. Last month, CSS released an integrated data report describing child and youth homelessness by combining data from the Homeless Management Information System, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, and the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services. An upcoming integrated data report will use combined information sources to describe single adult homelessness, which comprises the largest population sector of those experiencing homelessness. The second major output in the series is the annual Charlotte-Mecklenburg State of Housing Instability & Homelessness Report. This report includes local, regional, and national data on the full housing continuum. It also features data from the Point-in-Time Count; housing inventory; rental gaps; and system performance metrics. It provides a single, “go-to” document for all housing and homelessness-related data and information pertaining to Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The 2020 Report will feature new data sources, and also address the impact of COVID-19. It will be released in late September. In addition to the locally produced housing instability and homelessness outputs described above, several other housing-related reports have been released during the past year. This blog post will provide you with a “top five” reading list as of Summer 2020, including a brief overview; why you should read the report; and what each means for Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
Mecklenburg County Community Support Services (CSS) partners with homeless services agencies in Charlotte-Mecklenburg to enter, collect, analyze, and report data on housing and homelessness in the community. As part of this work, CSS first released the Housing Data Snapshot in June 2019, and has continued to update this data regularly. The Housing Data Snapshot includes information on the One Number, a system-wide, by-name list for all individuals actively experiencing homelessness; and Coordinated Entry data on the number of individuals requesting housing assistance. Because the One Number is updated monthly, it is the best, most current data point for homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. We are excited to announce the release of new features to the Housing Data Snapshot. These are intended to help interested stakeholders take a deeper dive into homelessness and housing trends. These features include inflow and outflow charts, as well as downloadable tables for all historical data. This blog post highlights the latest changes, and provides further analysis of the data added, to the Housing Data Snapshot and what these changes mean for Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
Last week’s blog post provided an in-depth look at the key findings from The Child & Youth Homelessness Integrated Data Report, which was released on July 9. The new report integrates data from multiple sources to describe child and youth homelessness and service utilization patterns in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The first blog post in the series covering different aspects of the integrated data report provided context about the the report, including how integrated data can help communities to understand and address complex issues like housing and homelessness. The five-part integrated data report explores gaps and connections across multiple homeless assistance services that impact children and youth in the community. Data from 2016 to 2017 is used from the following sources: Homeless Management Information System (HMIS); Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS); and Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services (DSS). The report was completed by the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute; and is part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Instability & Homelessness Report Series, which is funded by Mecklenburg County Community Support Services. This week’s post discusses the “So, What” of the report, describing evidence based strategies to address child and youth homelessness and offering recommendations for next steps.
