"Reaching Home: Missoula's 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness" is the result of more than a year and a half of research by a volunteer working group appointed by then-Missoula Mayor John Engen and then-County Commissioner Jean Curtiss.
The Housing Solutions Fund is helping people today
People experience homelessness for many different reasons: unaffordable rent, poor credit, negative rental history (including past-due utility payments), a lack of a support network that can lead to eviction, lack of available housing options, not working enough hours to pay for housing. Each of these requires a slightly different solution.
That’s where the Housing Solutions Fund comes in. It’s a flexible tool used by Reaching Home and its partners to provide support when, and how, people need it. It allows people to ask for and receive the help they need—whether it’s paying for rental applications for a new apartment or helping with a utility or rental deposit. Some people just need a gas card or bus ticket to return to their family network. Helping people avoid losing their housing, or quickly resolving their houseless experience is the goal and result of the Housing Solutions Fund. During the past two years, the fund has helped many of our neighbors. Give to the Housing Solutions Fund now. Learn more about the Housing Solutions fund.
Missoula has a Coordinated Entry System
The At-Risk Housing Coalition officially launched phase 1 of the Missoula Coordinated Entry System on June 1, 2017. The coordinated and streamlined effort is better serving people experiencing homelessness, reducing duplication of services, and providing system-level data contributing to enhanced efforts around our ultimate goal to establish a strong "Coordinated Entry System" that makes homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring for people in our community.
Why is the Missoula Coordinated Entry System important?
Reduces the burden on people in a housing crisis
Identifies the most appropriate housing resource to facilitate a rapid and permanent exit from homelessness
Prioritizes the most vulnerable households for housing (i.e. people experiencing chronic homelessness)
Collects system-wide data to inform necessary shifts in resources, identify gaps, etc.
Projects work together as a housing and service system (often reducing duplication of services)
Full understanding of housing barriers, and the opportunity to use data to promote change
It's a systematic response that ensures homelessness is prevented whenever possible or is otherwise a rare, brief, and non-recurring experience
Can we really end homelessness? Yes, we can!
We know that people are skeptical about the idea of ending homelessness. What does it even mean? Opening Doors: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness has provided this operational definition that Reaching Home endorses:
An end to homelessness does not mean that no one will ever experience a housing crisis again. Changing economic realities, the unpredictability of life, and unsafe or unwelcoming family environments may create situations where individuals, families, or youth could experience, re-experience, or be at risk of homelessness.
An end to homelessness means that every community will have a systematic response in place that ensures homelessness is prevented whenever possible or is otherwise a rare, brief, and non-recurring experience.
Specifically, every community will have the capacity to:
Quickly identify and engage people at risk of and experiencing homelessness.
Intervene to prevent the loss of housing and divert people from entering the homelessness service system.
Provide immediate access to shelter and crisis services, without barriers to entry, while permanent stable housing and appropriate support are being secured.
When homelessness does occur, quickly connect people to housing assistance and services—tailored to their unique needs and strengths—to help them achieve and maintain stable housing.”
More Information
Emily Armstrong
Houseless Initiative Specialist, City of Missoula Community Planning, Development & Innovation
Emily started as the Reaching Home Program Manager on January 4, 2021. Her past work intersects a variety of issue areas including homelessness, suicide prevention, housing advocacy, and social emotional development. Her diverse program leadership includes organizing the nation’s largest conference focused on student mental health, steering a youth sports collective impact effort across two states and D.C., managing a fellowship to advance mental health research, and creating and facilitating community trainings and workshops on a variety of topics. Emily deeply believes in the power of community and is excited to bring her creative and proactive energy to Reaching Home. She holds a Masters in Social Work from University of Montana, and a Bachelors in Sociology with a minor in Women and Gender Studies from Elon University. Catch her around Missoula skiing, mountain biking, or attempting to befriend one of the many cats along her walking route.
