Community Solutions

Community Solutions is a New York City-based non-profit social services organization, created by Rosanne Haggerty. It works with communities across the United States to help solve the problems connected to homelessness, health, mental health, and employment[]. Community Solutions has three cornerstone initiatives: The 100,000 Homes Campaign, The Brownsville Partnership, and The Northeast Neighborhood Partnership. It also provides consulting domestically and internationally to develop new approaches aimed at stemming the problems arising from extreme poverty.

History

Community Solutions was created by a team within Common Ground, a non-profit housing organization, also founded by Haggerty. While at Common Ground, Haggerty noticed that even though more supportive housing was being constructed and there was more funding for shelters and other relief programs, homelessness continued to increase. The team became a separate nonprofit known as Community Solutions in 2011 to look not just at ending homelessness, but at solving the problems that can lead to homelessness.

Initiatives

The 100,000 Homes Campaign is a national movement launched in July 2010. It has worked with 238 communities to find and house 100,000 of the most vulnerable and chronically homeless individuals by July 2014. On June 11, 2014, Campaign announced they had housed the 100,000th individual.[1] The campaign used online problem-solving infrastructure and in-person training and coaching to help communities improve their housing placement systems. The local community leads identified all of their homeless neighbors by name, tracked and measured their local housing placement progress, and adopted process improvements and evidence-based best practices to improve their ability to house homeless people more efficiently.[2]

In the New York City neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn, where a handful of major indicators for poverty are found, the Brownsville Partnership works to create solutions to the neighborhood's most pressing challenges. The Partnership comprises more than 30 partner organizations, and it draws on the intense engagement of community members and local stakeholders. The Brownsville Partnership is launching the 5,000 Jobs Campaign in August 2014 to connect 5,000 Brownsville residents to jobs by December 2017.[3]

The Northeast Neighborhood Partnership works in Hartford, Connecticut to improve the health and economic security of the neighborhood.[4]

Recognitions and awards

Community Solutions's 100,000 Homes Campaign won the 2013 World Habitat Award

References

Notes

  1. ↑ 100,000 Homes website
  2. ↑ Bornstein, David. "The Push to End Chronic Homelessness Is Working" (Op-Ed) New York Times (May 24, 2014)
  3. ↑ Brownsville Partnership website
  4. ↑ Northeast Neighborhood Partnership website
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