1. Homeward Trust Edmonton
National Alliance to End Homelessness
National Conference on Ending Homelessness
July 13, 2011
www.homewardtrust.ca

2. Contents
1 About Homeward Trust & Edmonton
2 Priority Setting & Coordinating
3 Metrics to Consider
4 What‟s next
www.homewardtrust.ca 2

3. Contents
1 About Homeward Trust & Edmonton
2 Priority Setting & Coordinating
3 Metrics to Consider
4 What‟s next
www.homewardtrust.ca 3

4. Homeward Trust Edmonton
Housing Body Consolidating Functions of Previous Bodies
Planning & Priorities
Management body
►Community Involvement mandated to implement
►Aboriginal Engagement
10 year plan and fund
priority projects
►Monitoring Progress
Community Plan on Implementation
Housing and Supports
►Focused efforts on priorities
City and Provincial 10 ►Innovation and new development
Year Plans ►Taking risks and learning

5. Homeward Trust Edmonton
Funds and coordinates efforts to
end homelessness in Edmonton
►Provides capital and assistance for new units
►Funds and coordinates support services
►Undertakes planning, research and promotes
community engagement
New Units Supports Community
•Long Term Supportive •Housing First Teams •Community Plan
•Accessing Existing Units •Interim Housing •Awareness
•Long Term •Supported Housing •Homeless Connects
Strategies, i.e. Models
•Research & Promotion of
Landbanking
Best Practices

6. Homeward Trust Edmonton
1. Some important outputs
New Units Supports Community
•Over 1900 units • Housing 1st Program •8 Homeless Counts
•800+ Market Appt. •Over 1400 housed •5 Homeless Connects
•Monitoring 80 projects •Innovative partnerships •600+ volunteers
2. 2011/12 Budget
D A Federal: $ 6.5 million
C
B Provincial: $ 15.4 million
A
C City: $ 1.8 million
B
D Other: $ .5 million
Total : $ 24.2 million

7. Homelessness in Edmonton
2421 homeless individuals were counted on
October 5, 2010 in the City of Edmonton as a part
of the 9th Homeless Count. This marked a 21%
decrease from the 3079 individuals counted in
2008.

8. Contents
1 About Homeward Trust & Edmonton
2 Priority Setting & Coordinating
3 Metrics to Consider
4 What‟s next
www.homewardtrust.ca 8

9. Plans and Planning
• “A Plan for Alberta” – A 10 year plan to End Homelessness
– Estimates need for 11,000 new units across Alberta
over 10 years
– 17 Strategies
• “A Place to Call Home” Edmonton‟s 10 year plan to End
Homelessness
– 800 supported housing units by 2011
– 1650 modestly-sized units by 2019
– 1000 units of permanent supportive housing by 2014
• Community Plan on Housing and Supports

10. Plans and Planning
• Annual Service Plan
– Developed and submitted to Housing and
Urban Affairs for resource allocation
– Identifies gaps and priorities based on system
capacity, strength of teams, emerging
demands and opportunities
• Increased emphasis on Assertive Outreach
• Needs of sub-populations: Youth & Aboriginal
• Less intensive case management for some
• Interim Housing and coordinated referral system

11. Housing First Program
• Relied extensively on the experience of other
communities
• Central Administration
• Delivered through Nine Community Agencies
• Case Management through Efforts to Outcomes
• Find. Furnishing Hope - Dedicated Furniture
Bank
• Direct Client Costs Start Up Costs
• Rental Assistance Program

12. Systems Approach - Supports
Centralized Administration
Program definition, contracts and data analysis
Housing
Furniture Bank – Find Furnishing Hope First
Advisory
Team Development, Coordination and training Council
Landlord Relations & Rental Assistance Program
Partner Organizations Housing First Teams & Interim Housing
Institutions Street & Drop-ins &
Shelters &
(Justice/ Parkland Agency
Transitional
hospital) Referral

13. Coordination & Priority setting
• Agency Engagement
– Housing First Advisory Council
– Team Lead Meetings
– Committee working groups on:
• Policy development, housing referral
processes, etc.
• Community Planning
• Provincial and Municipal Initiatives
– Cross Ministerial work, Data, Pilot
Initiatives

14. Training
• Training offered to all teams
– Housing First
– Case Management
– SPDAT (Service Prioritization and Decision
Assistance Tool)
– Aboriginal Diversity Training
• Yardstick
– Online training tool
– Repository of all supporting documents

15. The Landlord & Housing
Development
• Relationship is critical both at the ‘systems’
level and at the FSW/Team level
• Housing First participants or graduates currently live in
more than 400 different buildings across Edmonton.
• More than 80 landlords and property managers supporting
the program
•Managing tenant mix in non-market projects
•Funding directed at ending homelessness
•SPDAT as tool for balancing tenancy

16. SPDAT integration
•Recently integrated SPDAT in
ETO for Case Management
•Will develop rich data source for
analysis
•Alignment of tools and avoiding
redundancies

17. 1 About Homeward Trust & Edmonton
2 Priority Setting & Coordinating
3 Metrics
4 What‟s next
www.homewardtrust.ca 17

18. Outcomes: (HUA Mandated)
• Those housed through the program will remain
stably housed.
• Those persons housed in the program will show
a reduction in inappropriate use of the public
systems.
• Those persons accepted into the program will
demonstrate improved self-sufficiency.
• Persons accepted into the program will
demonstrate engagement in mainstream
services.

19. Outcome Indicators/Measures: (HUA
Mandated)
• At any given reporting period, 85% of the people housed
will still be permanently housed.
• Those persons permanently housed will show reduced
incarcerations, reduced emergency room visits and
reduced in-patient hospitalizations.
• Persons housed in the program will have a stable
income source (e.g. employment income, AISH, Alberta
Works, disability pension, Old Age Security, etc.).
• Persons housed in the program will be engaged in main
stream services (e.g. medical doctors or specialists,
legal service, etc.).

20. Housing First Results
From April 2009 to May 2011:
• 1371 people have found housing through the program.
– This number includes 170 families; there are 502 people in those families.
– 87% of clients remain successfully housed.
• Of the 1371 people who have found housing:
– 53% were considered chronically homeless at the time of intake into the program.
– The average age for all participants is 36 years old; the average age for adults is
41, and for children is 8 years old.
– 55% are male, 45% are female, less than 1% are transgendered.
– 47% of clients are Aboriginal
– 178 different landlords are providing housing to participants.
– The average rent for a participant is $771 per month.
– 374 households, in the program or recently graduated, receive rental assistance.

21. Monthly Data Reports
Monthly Report - May
•What do the Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 Team 5 Team 6
Housing First
- all
numbers tell us? Target # of Clients 80 220 100 120 200 80 800
Active Housed 88 208 97 46 142 110 691
Client to Worker Ratio (x:1) 22.00 18.91 19.40 7.67 14.20 27.50 17.28
•What don‟t the Active Housed (Adults Only) 78 140 68 42 115 60 503
numbers tell us? Client to Worker Ratio (x:1) (Adults Only) 19.50 12.73 13.60 7.00 11.50 15.00 12.58
# Active Households (Ind + Fam) 70 127 68 42 113 52 472
New Housing Units since Sept 1 30 59 27 24 59 27 226
•What do we collect Housed in Month 4 6 6 6 7 15 44
Chronic in Month 4 2 2 3 6 4 21
we aren‟t using? Individuals Housed in Month 2 3 2 6 7 1 21
Families Housed in Month 1 1 1 3 6
•What is buried in the
Exited in Month* 4 8 2 9 6 29
Grads in Month 1 2 7 6 16
case management Housing Retention 91.67% 63.16% 87.22% 75.86% 84.30% 83.04% 77.51%
Nearing Exit 8 61 8 4 18 1 100
and efforts # Past 12 Months 33 28 32 16 45 40 194
# Past 12 Months SPDAT >= 42 3 9 5 3 7 1 28
# Past 12 Months SPDAT Between 41 & 35 3 7 2 9 2 23
# Past 12 Months SPDAT < 35 24 11 7 9 25 24 100
# Grads Before 1yr 0 4 0 6 12 13 35
Ave Intake Acuity 43 44 45 37.6 39 41.2 41.63
>52 Intake 1 1
<=41 Intake 2 5 3 2 12
<=34 Intake 2 2 1 5
SPDATS Missing 0 3 1 17 0 0 21

22. Data for system improvement
• Retention rates don‟t tell whole story
– 85% in the program – significant decline post
graduation vs. 70% in the program consistent
post graduation
• Every „situation‟ or „number‟ has a
reasonable explanation.
– Look for the constellation to inform decisions
• Training & Retention rates
– Teams with high participation rate in training
have highest retention rates

23. Data for system improvement
• Tracking efforts per client
– When, what and how efforts are provided
– Last 3 months of service provision of particular
interest given impact of graduation stress
• Pre-homelessness circumstance
– Ensuring the right intervention and allocation of
resources for the situation
• Expanding ETO to include other Service Points
– Financial planning and trusteeship
– Clinical Assessment Team
– Elder services

24. 1 About Homeward Trust & Edmonton
2 Priority Setting & Coordinating
3 Metrics to Consider
4 What‟s next
www.homewardtrust.ca 24

25. The Feedback Loop
•How are Team Leads using
feedback for data management?
•What differences are there in team
performance as a result?
•How is Yardstick utilzation being
tracked to contribute to the „feedback
loop‟ effect
“The premise of a feedback loop is simple:
Provide people with information about their
actions in real time, then give them a
chance to change those actions, pushing
them toward better behaviors”
Thomas Goetz, Wired Magazine, July 2011

26. Tools and testing
• What tools and systems can be
employed to modify behaviour
and promote solid and consistent
data entry and utilization?
• Experiment „on myself‟, then my
team, then consider what‟s
relevant to improve community
level performance
• Examples: Rypple is a social
performance platform built for
teams to share goals, recognize
great work, and help each other
improve.
• Being in new territory means
translating seemingly non-
relevant to highly useful.

27. Continuous Development
• Better, and better and better
• More training available outside of Housing
First „system‟ to develop community of
practice
• More sharing of data analysis and
generating a „feedback loop‟ at a
community level.
• Have a nerd on every team. Or make one.

28. Thank You!
www.homewardtrust.ca