Transcript Glancing Back, Looking Forward: Sound Families and Beyond David Takeuchi University of Washington School of Social Work David Wertheimer Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation “Foundations: Agents.

Glancing Back, Looking Forward:
Sound Families and Beyond
David Takeuchi
University of Washington School of Social Work
David Wertheimer
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
“Foundations: Agents of Systems Change”
National Conference on Ending Family Homelessness
Seattle, Washington
February 7, 2008
Framing Results from the Sound
Families Evaluation
• Ambiguous loss
• Theory of limited difference
• Seeking housing, finding place
Brief Background
of Sound Families
• Began in 2000 with $40M investment by the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation
• Initiative leveraged more than $200M of public sector
support
• Goal of tripling the number of service-enriched
housing units for homeless families in Washington
state
• 1,445 units funded, with the majority using a
transitional housing model
• Large majority of families made strides toward
housing stability, economic independence, and
improved quality of life
• For more information, visit www.soundfamilies.org
Data Source for this Presentation
Evaluation of the Sound Families
Initiative, Final Findings: A Closer Look
at Families’ Lives During and After
Supportive Transitional Housing.
(December, 2007). Seattle, Washington:
Northwest Center for Children and
Families, School of Social Work,
University of Washington
Some Characteristics of Families
• 85% of families were headed by a single
caregiver, typically a single mother
• Domestic violence is one of the major
precipitating causes of homelessness
• Homelessness associated with different
stressors that have no immediate conclusion
(debt, separation from family members,
substance abuse, mental health, issues,
limited earning power, etc.)
What is Ambiguous Loss?
• Pauline Boss: Unclear loss or stress
lacking closure that creates conditions
that are stressful and confusing
• Lack of clarity generates anxiety,
depression, and immobilizes
individuals and relational systems
• Long term consequences are
manifested as being unable to move on
with one’s life
Examples of Ambiguous Loss:
• Physically present, but psychologically
absent (family member with chronic mental
illness or substance abuse problem)
• Physically absent, but psychologically
present (family member separated from a
family)
• Some researchers are focusing on ambiguity
in separation from places such as
immigration and homelessness
A Focus on Ambiguous
Loss Helps to:
• Frame problems beyond individuals
and focuses on relationships
• Identify whether it is operating within
an individual’s family
• Seek closure for the uncertainties
As One Family Member Stated:
“(Our life) is pretty
consistent...I’ve gotten a routine
down, we’re not struggling to
make things happen or worrying
about how to survive. We know
we’re going to have dinner and
we’re all going to have a bath.”
Some General Conclusions from
the Sound Families Initiative
• Individuals and families are quite diverse.
While averages can aptly characterize
individuals and families, there was no single
distinctive feature.
• A number of facets are associated with
maintaining permanent housing, finding
employment, and educational outcomes for
children. No single set of predictors
explained a substantial proportion of the
variance in various outcomes.
Theory of Limited Difference
(Cole & Singer)
• Refocuses from a search for variables
that explain large effects
• To a focus on how small effects over
time create large differences at a single
point in time
• The theory centers on “kicks” and
“responses”
• Example of gender differences in
scientific publications
Application of Limited Difference
to Homelessness
• Focuses on cumulative advantages and
disadvantages
• Non-linear, dynamic analyses
• Examines trajectories of families
• Highlights importance of reactions of
negative things
Housing Outcomes for Families Successfully
Completing Transitional Programs
100%
80%
11
11
9
9
60%
Exit to non-permanent housing
Secured permanent housing without
any subsidy
Secured permanent housing without
Sec 8 or public housing but with
other subsidy
40%
61
Secured permanent housing without
Sec 8 but in public housing
20%
Secured permanent housing with
Section 8
0%
N = 651, excludes unknowns
Success in the Program is More
than Finding a House
As one respondent states:
“I (enjoyed) being part of the
community ....I had built my own
social life and all of our activities. I
felt like I was a little safer there.”
Place
• Empirical research on place typically
focuses on built environments or
physical spaces
• Tends to have small effects on various
outcomes
• Need to expand definitions to include
social and psychological facets of
place
Place involves …
A geographic
location that has
boundaries and
reference points
Gieryn, 2000
A nexus where
social life is
initiated and
engaged
A holder of
symbols, values,
tradition, history;
and a frame for
organizing our
experiences
Incorporating the Concept of Place
Helps to:
• Focus on more than the built
environment
• Establish connections that make
people feel established or in place
• Focus on conditions that make people
feel disconnected within communities
and change these conditions
Implications for Moving Forward
NAEH Conference, February 2008
18
Where we have been: The Sound Families
Initiative -- a significant set of partnerships
City
leaders
County/State
leaders
Service
Providers
Housing
Authorities
Gates
Foundation
Triple the number of new supportive housing units in
Pierce, Snohomish, and King counties
1,445 units
2,700 children and 1,500
families served to date
2/3 found permanent
housing
School absenteeism
dropped by 24%
60% of families increased
their incomes
Employment increased by
22%
19
Acknowledging the successes of our
collaborative efforts to date
Sound Families was highly successful in achieving
initially articulated goals:
 Unit production
 Linking services to housing
 Helping families recover from the trauma of
homelessness
 Ensure graduating families were able to access
permanent housing resources
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Key Lessons Learned From Sound Families:
Individualized housing and services, links to opportunity
Housing + services works
All families’ needs are not the same
Rapid re-housing and short-term supports v. permanent
supportive housing and ongoing, intensive services
Jobs + education is a critical lever
Not enough is being done to bring employment
opportunities to wage earners in recovering families
21
Key Lessons Learned From Sound Families:
The need for improved response at the systems level
Our family homelessness system
is not functioning as effectively as it could
Families don’t know where to turn to for help
Families aren’t always getting the right type of help
Emergency services are necessary at times of crisis,
but insufficient to solve the larger problems
Housing crisis
Emergency
shelter
30 days
Transitional
housing
Permanent
housing
Up to 2 years
Current system assumes “one size fits all” model
22
Recognizing the need to move forward,
mindful of the lessons learned
Sound Families evaluation data point towards what
we could do differently or better:
 Increase efforts to prevent families from becoming homeless in
the first place
 Match housing and service needs more precisely to each
family’s individual experience and circumstances
 Minimize the disruption of multiple family moves
 Ensure the right intensity and mix of services as we support
each family in efforts to move towards both stability and selfsufficiency over time
23
Implications of looking through a different
research lens…
 We know homelessness is a complex phenomenon
 The symptom or result of a constellation of complex causal
factors
 Each family’s story, or the way these factors combine, is
unique
 Different factors may have different significance or impact,
depending on the nature, sequence, geography and results of
a chain of related or unrelated events
 Recovery from homelessness requires addressing each
and all of these complexities
» Individually tailored services: The right mix at the right time at
the right level of intensity
 No one system or agency has the resources, capacity or
skill set to do it all
24
From Conversation to Action Plan
 Joseph, a homeless man in Seattle: “I am not
incompetent. I just need help moving the
obstacles out of the way.”
 Reframing the solutions: It’s not just about what
families have to do, but what systems must do to
better support families
 We may be part of the problem: Many of the
issues have more to do with how housing and
service systems are organized and accessed
than the individual problems families face
25
Systems integration: Complex work for auto
mechanics, a mystery to the rest of us
26
When it works well: Integration is invisible to
the end user -- we get where we need to go
27
Looking under the hood of the family homelessness
engine: A coordinated and tailored approach
Families in
crisis
• 20,000+
children and
their parents in
WA experience
homelessness
• High (>50%)
rates of
recidivism
Organizations
State / Local
Systems
Prevention
+
Coordinated
Intake
Services
Rapid housing
+
Opportunity
+
Families
stably
housed
• High quality organizational capacity aligned to meet the needs of homeless
families and those on the brink
• Local provider networks collaborate to integrate and match the most effective
resources to the needs of each family
• Data systems support real time decisions for homeless families, improve
provider practices, and support broader advocacy efforts
• Advocacy builds collaboration and sense of shared accountability; enables
use of existing money in new ways; promotes new money into sector
28
Moving Towards a Coordinated and Tailored
System
Requires that we think about how we do business
in a different way:
 Asks much of all current stakeholders
 Challenges how existing resources across multiple systems
are currently allocated and spent
 Identifies the need for new resources in capital projects,
operations and supportive services arenas
Must leverage buy-in to both a willingness to
change current practices and a new way of doing
business
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Supporting and/or questioning the
status quo when and where needed
 Extensive dialogue before anything changes
 Convene the right stakeholders, prepared to do
business together and differently
 Identify leaders and “mechanics” who can serve as
agents of change. Find change agents among both the
familiar and the unexpected constituencies
 Provide infrastructure resources required to support
change. (Lead agencies, boundary spanners, advocacy,
etc.)
 Create incentives to realign existing funds and add new
resources in pursuit of new ways of doing business
 Evaluate results
30
Systems change: Four key roles that can be played by
philanthropy in partnership with others
Convener:
Getting right people
into right places
and dialogues
Strategic Investor:
Funding innovations
that drive systems
change
Knowledge Generator:
Investing in research to
inform policy & practice
Advocate:
Providing credible
voice to advance
systems change
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