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Blake Kohler
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Tackling homelessness is hard. Thankfully many amazing organizations are doing their all to end the plight of homelessness in America. This article lists six inspirational organizations, each with a unique strategy to help individuals experiencing homelessness.
These organizations use unique methods to move the needle on one of the world's most critical problems from excellent software, inspiring videos, and feats of coordination and cooperation.
While we cannot list every organization doing fantastic work and homelessness, here are six of our favorites.
One of the most common complaints you're here from individuals experiencing homelessness is the feeling that they are invisible. People will go out of their way to ignore them instead of recognizing them on the streets.
Mark Horvath and the team at Invisible People are helping to overcome that by utilizing documentary-style short films with interviews of individuals experiencing homelessness. These short films are powerful and help put the focus back on the person instead of the abstract problem of homelessness.
The CityGate Network is the nation's oldest and largest organization of faith-based homeless providers. The CityGate Network supports its association's members by providing education, training, and resources to help services providers in every major American city tackle the cause of helping people in impoverished conditions.
The CityGate Network also champions faith-based providers externally and providers' guidance and promotion to groups navigating the complex waters of the nonprofit world.
Possibly the most respected name in homelessness, the National Alliance to End Homelessness carries the standard for advocacy and education in the homeless world. Influential at the federal, COC, and provider levels, NAEH often sets the tone for how groups tackle homelessness in their communities.
NAEH utilizes various ways to communicate their advice and expertise. Still, foremost amongst them is their bi-annual conferences where decision-makers from around the country gather to be trained and share best practices.
One of the three principal Homeless Management Informational System (HMIS) providers, Bitfocus's Clarity Human Services software powers major cities' response towards the homeless crisis.
Focusing on the whole person, Bitfocus helps provide the data that decision-makers at all levels of government need to make informed choices. With various implementations along the homeless hotbed of the west coast, Bitfocus helps power the systemization of best practices and coordination amongst multiple providers.
The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans is a network of community-based service providers and local, state, and federal agencies that help tackle the problem of homelessness as it relates specifically to veterans.
Helping tap unique resources and always advocating for additional resources to support our struggling veterans, the NCHV helps facilitate the cooperation of groups that provide emergency and supportive housing, food services, job training, and placement and legal aid groups.
Serving as the primary liaison between government officials and the organizations seeking to help end homelessness, NCHV has successfully advocated for programs that have reduced veterans experiencing homelessness by 50%.
MissionTracker is the software powering many faith-based homeless providers around the country. Having been initially developed specifically for a Rescue Mission (the Hope Gospel Mission), MissionTracker helps organizations manage their residents, volunteers, and employees within one person-centric system.
MissionTracker utilizes a web-based platform that has significantly decreased the cost of running an organization effectively. They now support nearly 100 organizations around the country, often who fall outside of the standard COC and HMIS umbrella.
As we shared at the beginning of this article, many more incredible groups are working to end homelessness. You might have noticed that none of these groups mentioned provide direct services! Instead, they each provide a service that helps maximize service providers' effect in their missions.
Stay tuned for more posts in the future where we highlight other incredible groups working to help vulnerable individuals.
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