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Pathways Home: Seattle’s Person-Centered Plan to Support People Experiencing Homelessness specific population and actively work from the top of the lists down, consulting on barriers to housing placement, and collaboratively problem solving as a group. Participation in By Name List case consultation will be included in contracts as appropriate. Partnerships The City of Seattle is part of a larger regional response to homelessness. In order for our efforts to be successful, we must align with the direction of our community, county, state and philanthropic partners. Through partnerships and funder alignment, resources are maximized and systems work cohesively. It also provides a level of consistency to providers to have all their program funders utilizing similar standards and messages. HSD can only adequately address the crisis of homelessness facing our community with the support and collaboration of numerous City and regional partners. Office of Housing The Seattle Office of Housing (OH) manages investments from the Seattle Housing Levy and other local and federal capital sources to fund the preservation and production of affordable homes. Seattle now has over 12,500 affordable rental homes that provide a critical resource for making Seattle a diverse and equitable city. OH’s portfolio includes thousands of units serving homeless households, including both permanent supportive housing with extensive services on site and affordable units set aside for homeless families and individuals via partnership with homeless service providers. OH is a significant partner in implementing the systems changes outlined in the HPF. OH will work with housing providers to improve access to housing for people who experience homelessness. OH will also work with housing owners and funders to ensure that our community’s valuable real estate investments are preserved and continue to serve homeless and other extremely low income people as homeless program changes and funding shifts are implemented. Seattle Housing Authority The Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) is a key partner in our City’s efforts to provide stable, affordable housing for homeless individuals and families and other extremely low‐income households. SHA provides ongoing operating funding (project‐based Section 8 vouchers) for over 3,500 units of nonprofit rental housing, most of which received development funding from the Seattle Office of Housing. These projects include 1,620 units of permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless people with disabilities. SHA also provides vouchers for homeless veterans and their families, and is a partner in an innovative partnership working to prevent homelessness and improve educational outcomes for Seattle schoolchildren. Mayor’s Office on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Gender‐based violence (GBV) is a leading cause of homelessness among women and youth. While Pathways Home recognizes this important connection, throughout planning for systems Page | 31
Pathways Home: Seattle’s Person-Centered Plan to Support People Experiencing Homelessness transformation work, very conscious decisions were made to exclude domestic violence (DV) programs from the homeless systems analysis. The data analysis was based in client data obtained from HMIS, which for domestic violence programs excludes most of the essential elements necessary to complete the SWAP analysis. This data accommodation is done to protect survivor’s confidentiality and safety. In addition, most of the metrics being analyzed by the SWAP tools would be expected to yield significantly different results for DV programs than they would for homeless programs, such as entries from housed situations. It should be expected that most people entering DV shelter would enter from a housed situation and most people entering homeless shelters would not. While domestic violence is a significant contributing factor to homelessness, in Seattle/King County the interventions for DV and homelessness are very distinct. DV shelters and housing programs have been exempted from the Coordinated Entry process which is the backbone of the homeless response system. Currently HSD funds DV and sexual assault programs for significantly different outcomes than homeless investments, recognizing that the primary outcome in GBV response is survivor safety. In addition to building upon coordinated entry, the intent of the system transformation work was to align all funders and contracts with similar outcomes, metrics for performance measures and program standards, most of which would not be appropriate for inclusion in DV program contracts. Best practices and recommendations for the two populations are often very divergent as well, such as transitional housing. While transitional housing is considered a poor intervention for most homeless adults and families, it is still widely considered an appropriate intervention for domestic violence survivors. Throughout the planning process, there was recognition that applying these homeless system transformation efforts to DV housing programs would create significant barriers for both GBV survivors and the programs that serve them. It was never the intent for the homeless system transformation to negatively impact domestic violence programs or investments. The investment principals, priority activities, and performance metrics are not intended to be applied to housing programs serving victims of any form of gender based violence. HSD will work closely with the Mayor’s Office on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault to ensure that appropriate training on recognizing gender‐based violence and responding appropriately is provided to homeless service providers. The goal being to connect any individuals or families homeless as a result of violence to the appropriate resource to meet their needs. Regional Alignment with other funders Without coordination between funders, the homeless service delivery system cannot possibly expect to become a fully integrated and cohesive system. All Home is a broad coalition of stakeholders to focus on addressing and eliminating homelessness in King County. The Funder’s Alignment Committee operationalizes the funding priorities of the All Home strategic plan, by Page | 32
Page 1 and 2: The vision of the City of Seattle i
Page 3 and 4: Pathways Home: Seattle’s Person-C
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Page 53: System Infrastructure Families Sing

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