Collaborating Across Sectors to Prevent Homelessness: Building a Local Culture of Learning for National Impact

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

This roundtable will convene a cross-sector group of researchers, local government representatives, and non-profit social service providers who have forged long-term partnerships that are working to prevent homelessness. From their varying perspectives, the speakers will relate lessons on building resilient researcher-practitioner collaborations that result in policy and program impact, not only in their local context but on a broader, national scale. The group will solicit experience from the audience and explore together what role such local partnerships can play in a shifting national policy environment. 

The Roundtable discussion will be organized around two examples of homelessness prevention initiatives from two of the largest counties in the US: King County in the Seattle area and Santa Clara County in California’s Silicon Valley. In King County, a partnership among researchers, County staff, and social service providers to evaluate a youth & family homelessness prevention initiative that launched in 2017 helped to build a robust culture of learning that continues to this day. Speakers will relate how the cross-sector team grappled with a null result from a rigorous study to develop effective and transformative programmatic and policy solutions over the long-term. In Santa Clara County, social service providers brought in researchers and government staff to pilot and rigorously test a similar homeless prevention initiative. Speakers will relate how the partnership led to a scaling of investment and integration of homelessness prevention as a core component of the County’s homelessness strategy. In both cases, speakers will also address how working together on dissemination of learnings can drive not only local, but also national impact. 

In addition to exploring how researcher-practitioner partnerships can drive impact and scale in a particular program area, the speakers will also share best practices for how such partnerships can build a culture of learning within social sector organizations more broadly. In this way, the Roundtable will be relevant to anyone interested in cultivating productive cross-sector partnerships for impact, regardless of the programmatic area in which they are applied.

Policy Area

• Housing, Community Development, and Urban Policy

Secondary Policy Area

• Public and Nonprofit Management and Finance

Moderator

• Kalila Jackson-Spieker, J-PAL North America (MIT)

Organizer

• Regina Gesicki, University of Notre Dame

Speakers

• Carrie S Cihak, King County

• David C Phillips, University of Notre Dame

• KJ Kaminski, Santa Clara County Office of Supportive Housing

• Alyson Moon, Mary's Place