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Ben McAdams
Former U.S. Congressman | Utah

The Future We Choose: A Safe Home For Everyone

Idea Category: Housing

Problem

Each year, the Salt Lake County community invests $42 million in government and private funds on the complex issue of homelessness, helping Utah’s Housing First initiative to dramatically reduce chronic homelessness. Currently, resources are invested without coordination either among funders and service agencies or between them. Efforts of funders and service agencies are disconnected, and no one has a common understanding of the problem, shared solutions, or common ways to measure progress resulting in isolated pockets of efficiency and impact.

Solution

Salt Lake County is coordinating a system-wide effort to identify gaps in current homeless services and improve services delivery to individuals and families experiencing or at risk for homelessness. The County is also organizing broader community efforts around these outcomes by developing an innovative, integrated set of supportive finance strategies, including an innovative portfolio approach to related Pay for Success projects, a public-private funding collaborative, and an initiative to coordinate Community Development Block Grant funds region-wide. The Mayor is also determined to make the resulting data widely accessible online through a public dashboard, now in development, which will demonstrate accountability to residents.