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When it comes to solving chronic homelessness, money from the government matters. But another factor matters even more: whether local social service organizations help make policy decisions.
Since 1994, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has required providers of homeless services to collaborate with local peers and local government to pursue a regional plan and apply for federal funding together under the Continuum of Care (CoC) Program. According to new research from professors of social work Jennifer Mosley and Sunggeun (Ethan) Park, the level of nonprofit participation and influence affects how much of an impact such regional consortia of community organizations and government agencies have on rates of homelessness.
“We find that while both provider influence in decision-making and federal funding growth are directly associated with reductions in chronic homelessness, provider influence also serves as an important mediator in the relationships between network governance structure, federal funding growth, and reductions in chronic homelessness,” write Mosley, an associate professor at the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice; and Park, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Social Work.
The pair found that when the CoC governance structure was led by participants, the region saw a 3.6 percent decrease in chronic homelessness. Government-led CoCs, by contrast, experienced a 3.1 percent increase.
Mosley has studied nonprofit organizations for years. She learned during a previous research project about the ongoing CoC meetings that bring together government agencies, homeless-services organizations, and other community groups, with the occasional addition of homeless clients themselves. The idea behind these councils is that different groups see the homelessness problem from different angles, both in the field and at higher levels, and can apply their perspectives to group deliberations to deliver better decisions. This format offered a major avenue for organizing and implementing policy and took up a tremendous amount of effort for all the participants, she says.
“If homeless nonprofits are spending all this time and energy going to these meetings, how do we make sure this is actually a good use of their time?” Mosley asks. “They are typically working on a shoestring, using every dollar they have to maintain staffing and provide services.”
Regional consortia differ in governance. Those that simply funnel money without much collaboration are ineffectual. “They get some funding from [HUD] and distribute it but don’t do much else,” she says. Then there are those groups that play a more active role in policy-setting locally, which can be either positive or negative for solving the problems of homelessness.
“Some CoCs have been very effective in bringing the community of providers together and connecting them with other organizations that are a little bit to the side—legal aid organizations, school representatives, domestic violence organizations, business districts, sheriff’s offices,” Mosley says. These CoCs create a forum where groups can meet and work on how not to duplicate services to the community or work against each other inadvertently.
Alternatively, a CoC can take an active part but in a way that adversely affects the constituent groups’ ability to provide services. These committees tend to be run by a tight knot of people who steer the participants toward the policy steps that will get them the most points on a HUD grant application. This focus on grant success comes at the expense of “thinking about how they can be innovative,” she says.
Using administrative data from HUD, a survey encompassing 313 CoCs, and case studies, Mosley and Park found that how the participants work together and make decisions matters.
“Collaborative governance can best improve client outcomes when it is truly collaborative and providers are given meaningful ways to engage with and influence the process,” the researchers write.
“CoCs that are able to meaningfully include their nonprofit service providers do a better job at meeting outcomes,” Mosley says. “The process of what happens in these meetings and how the collaboration happens is just as important [as the result of the meeting].”
The paper’s most important finding is that service providers, who work most closely with the homeless, should take the lead in organizing responses to homelessness, says Rachel Fyall, an associate professor at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. “All communities are required to work collaboratively on addressing homelessness, yet communities with organizing structures that empower the homeless-service providers as systems-level decision makers are able to outperform communities with other ways of organizing,” she says.
Jennifer E. Mosley and Sunggeun (Ethan) Park, “Service Providers’ Influence in Collaborative Governance Networks: Effectiveness in Reducing Chronic Homelessness,” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, forthcoming.
Read more stories by Chana R. Schoenberger.