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**Title: Creating Viable Strategies for Systems Change**

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Why Systems Change?

Most services for persons who are chronically homeless are highly
fragmented:

-   Access to services is haphazard at best.

-   To recover, homeless persons must seek out and combine the services
    they need.

-   Programs and resources are cobbled together without an overall
    strategy.

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Systems Change Works!

-   Integration of services and supportive housing are a proven strategy
    for success.

-   Integration doesn't just happen -- it must be planned, pursued with
    vigor, and sustained with efforts over time.

-   Success requires innovation, stretching, and creative use of
    existing and new resources.

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So, what is a system? ***(Corporation for Supportive Housing)***

Try a new approach to defining systems: A system is the ways that...

-   Power

-   Money

-   Ideas and values

-   Technology or know-how (methods and skills)

-   Day-to-day routine (habits)

> ... are linked to achieve a mission or

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Changes in Power

Changes in power require that:

-   Duties and authority are rearranged.

-   Designated positions are given responsibility for new activities.

-   Stakeholders that have not been heard or present may assume new and
    different roles.

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Changes in Money

Changes in money require:

-   Analysis of how funds are currently or traditionally identified,
    allocated, spent, and monitored

-   Development of new resource procedures

-   Testing of new procedures for reliability, manageability, and
    effectiveness.

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Changes in Ideas and Values

Changes in ideas and values require:

-   Re-examination of traditional definitions of "success".

-   New definitions of "success," rooted in different data, standards,
    and values that are widely shared.

-   Discussion of and education about "success" across multiple systems.

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Changes in Methods

Changes in methods require:

-   Identification of new promising practice approaches.

-   Development of skill bases among practitioners required to implement
    promising practices.

-   Implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of changes and new
    models.

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Changes in Habits

Changes in habits require:

-   Understanding the demands of an integrated, "multicultural"
    environment.

-   Providing training and rationale for changing habits.

-   Developing capacity among participants to interact with each other
    differently as part of their core work activity.

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What is Systems Integration? *(Kelly Point Partners)*

Housing and human services systems are integrated when there is sharing
of:

-   *Information*

-   *Planning*

-   *Clients*

-   *Resources*

-   *Responsibility.*

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Who should Collaborate?

-   Programs that target homelessness [and]{.underline} mainstream
    programs.

-   Housing: development and finance, rent subsidy.

-   Services: mental health, addiction treatment, health care, social
    services, employment.

-   Trusted bridge-builders.

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How System Change Occurs

-   A better way of doing things is recognized.

-   A new vision guides the change process, e.g., "No Wrong Door."

-   Resources are made to work together: Allocation of housing and
    service resources are coordinated.

-   Administrative and program structures are linked: There are shared
    policies, procedures, and funding mechanisms.

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Effective Systems Change

-   Requires *persistent* pressure on *most* or *all* of the key
    elements over a *sustained* period of time (years, not months).

To get there, begin with:

-   Persuasive short-term accomplishments.

-   Production of a new product or service by extraordinary means, just
    to show it can be done and is worth replicating.

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System Change Building Blocks

-   Planning collaboratively

-   Building consensus and setting goals

-   Investing and leveraging resources

-   Coordinating and streamlining funding

-   Building provider capacity

-   Developing industry standards, quality assurance, and monitoring

-   Cultivating leaders and champions

-   Using data and communications to make the case

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Expect Resistence!

-   Systems change unsettles old systems as it builds new ones: This is
    to be expected!

-   Old systems exist because they have survived pressures before: You
    are the next concept of the day and hopefully will disappear!

-   Services and housing are not just separate systems, but separate and
    distinct cultures with unique histories, institutions, beliefs,
    values, and stereotypes: Build "multicultural competence!"

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Head for the Dysfunction

-   Look for places in the *old* systems where players are most unhappy
    and frustrated.

-   Utilize media incidents and disasters.

-   Show potential allies [real]{.underline} solutions -- e.g., field
    trips to visit model programs.

-   Create shared ownership to promote shared accountability and
    commitment.

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Agree on Where You're Going

-   Change relies in part on proof that new methods will achieve more
    than old ones, with better quality, while maintaining
    consumer-centered protections and safeguards.

-   Assess progress consistently.

-   Insist on quality in housing and services alike.

-   Demonstrate and enforce mutually shared standards.

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Data is Your Best Friend

-   Identify the costs of homelessness.

-   Project savings from reduced crises when effective services and
    housing are provided.

-   Data don't have to be perfect -- circulate what you know and do have
    available.

-   Work at getting more data -- it may take years to get, and then even
    longer to make usable.

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Make the Case

-   Communicate what you know to key policymakers:

    -   Focus on the results instead of the problem.

    -   Keep language and concepts simple.

    -   Gather and use personal stories.

    -   Promote media interest.

-   Put a "face" on the findings: Consumers and human stories
    (anecdotes) are the essential companion to data.

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Cultivate Heroes & Heroines

-   The most effective champions aren't necessarily the most powerful
    individuals (although they can help!).

-   Businesspeople, budget officials, staff aides, and advisers all may
    be better than professional advocates or top elected officials.

-   Leadership must be passionate and untiring. Find a gifted
    'salesperson' with a huge Rolodex and a convincing command of the
    subject.

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Be Creative About Money

-   New money is powerful, but scarce and hard to sustain over time.

-   Most change comes from old money used in new ways.

-   Work to assemble a funding package that does more, solves more
    problems, serves more goals, *[and]{.underline}* uses equal or less
    money.

-   One effective pilot or demo can start the process.

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Create Systems that Make Sense to Clients

-   Even when using money for the same *purposes* as before, make
    applications and the administration of funding consistent with the
    *experiences and needs* of individuals experiencing chronic
    homelessness.

-   Put the client first in terms of how we define, conceptualize, and
    move toward integrated systems solutions that promote true change.