May 2014 – In 2012, the 100,000 Homes Campaign partnered with the
Rapid Results Institute (RRI) – a nonprofit Schaffer Consulting helped
to create. Rapid Results is Schaffer's methodology which asks people to
establish bold goals they commit to achieving within 100 days.
RRI
works with 100,000 Homes and their community partners across the US to
increase the rate at which chronically homeless people and veterans are
moved into permanent supportive housing. With RRI's help, 100,000 Homes
is currently on track to reach it's goal of 100,000 people in homes by
the end of June. In true Rapid Results fashion, they have set another
audacious goal as a follow-up.
Sometime in June, the 100,000 Homes Campaign
– an initiative launched four years ago to help communities around the
country place 100,000 chronically homeless people into permanent
supportive housing – expects to announce that it has reached its goal. It’s a significant milestone: It means that many American cities are
currently on track to end chronic and veteran homelessness by the end of
the decade or earlier.
When I first reported
on the 100,000 Homes Campaign in December 2010, it struck me as an
audacious vision: the human welfare equivalent of the race to put a man
on the moon. Was it achievable?
In January 2012, things weren’t
looking so good. “We looked at our numbers and we realized we were on
track to be the 30,000 homes campaign,” recalled Becky Kanis Margiotta,
the campaign director.
The campaign began partnering with the Rapid Results Institute
[a nonprofit Schaffer Consulting helped to create], a group whose
methodology challenges teams to come up with bold goals that they commit
to achieving within 100 days. (My colleague Tina Rosenberg has reported
on this model.)
“It made us go beyond our normal boundaries,”
recalled Shannon Nazworth, whose organization, Ability Housing, has
served as a hub for the local housing campaign. “We had to think, What
could we do in the next 100 days?” They established a goal to house 100
vulnerable people in 100 days; it meant increasing their average
placement rate from 4 people per month to close to 40 per month. “We set
this goal and, candidly, people didn’t think we could pull it off,”
said Nazworth.
“We ended up exceeding the first goal,” said Nazworth. “So we set a goal to do another 100, and we ended up beating that goal, too
.” They more than doubled it. “The successes made people in the
community think, Wow, we can actually move the bar on this. We can end
long-term homelessness.”
Coming soon from Community Solutions: a new goal.
“Zero: 2016,” said Kanis. “A fast-paced race to bring chronic and veteran homelessness to zero.”
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