CCHA Strategic Plan

Executive Summary Draft

Strategic Plan:  July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2028

Where we started…

The overarching principles for this Strategic Plan were carried forward from prior plans and support the common agenda and common measures of progress established in 2017.

Common Agenda:

Homelessness in Chittenden County will be rare and brief. All people who are experiencing homelessness in Chittenden County who want housing become stably and safely housed through access to a responsive, comprehensive and coordinated system of care

Guiding Principles:
  1. Programs and systems are inclusive and culturally competent
  2. We engage people with lived experience when we design, implement and evaluate programs and systems
  3. All interactions are trauma-informed
  4. We provide multi-generational services for families
  5. We know people by name, and we know what their individual needs are
  6. We use standard assessment at all doors so that people have fair and equitable access to resources
Common Measures of Progress:
  • Number of people experiencing homelessness (Rare)
  • Length of time people remain homeless (Brief)
  • The extent to which people who exit homelessness to permanent housing destinations return to homelessness (Stable)

What we did …

The design for the strategic planning process was grounded in two principles:

  • Learn from the past to better understand the present and point to the future
  • Listen to the people who will be responsible for – and impacted by – the plan

The Alliance heard from more than one hundred people including people with lived experience, Alliance partners, community leaders, regulators and members of the community. Input was gathered through a series of community conversations and small group and individual interviews.

The Strategic Planning committee then used an iterative process to create the plan – they built (what do you think we need to do?), tested (this is what we thought we heard – did we get it right?)  and revised (do these strategies resonate – should the Alliance take them on?) before drafting the plan.

Major Themes

 

What can the Alliance do …

The Chittenden County Homeless Alliance is not an independent and autonomous organization. It is a coalition of individuals, organizations, and government entities who share a common vision. As a coalition the Alliance plays a variety of roles – all of them intended to fulfill its primary purposes to:

  1. Collect and share data to inform priorities, direction and decision-making
  2. Amplify the voice of people who are or have experienced being unhoused
  3. Educate and advocate for sound housing policy and practices
  4. Secure and allocate resources
  5. Support collaborative actions
  6. Maintain accessible entry points to housing supports and services
  7. Evaluate impact
  8. Maintain a focus on gaps, disparities and equity

Newly identified or re-affirmed strategies:

  1. Ensure service delivery system improvement is driven by people with lived experience
  2. Strengthen, deepen and broaden active participation and the scope of work of the Alliance
  3. Improve availability, timeliness and use of data to drive practice and make decisions
  4. Develop adequate and sustainable resources
  5. Model and encourage a culture of continuous improvement
  6. Support and advocate for a system-wide workforce and professional development plan

What’s Next…

Begin implementing the five-year plan:

Phase 1:  Planning and Capacity Building (9 – 12 months)

The Alliance needs to focus internally and:

  • Build support and alignment around key elements of the strategic plan
  • Define what it will take to implement the strategies
  • Secure and leverage resources to implement the plan
  • Assign responsibility, authority and accountability across Alliance for moving key element of the plan forward
  • Revise and create governance documents to keep Alliance focused on the plan
  • (Re)Engage current and past partners
  • Establish means to evaluate the value and benefit of the Alliance
Phase 2:  Transition and Implementation (12 – 18 months)

The Alliance will begin to implement the strategic plan more fully by:

  • Establishing annual priorities and work plans
  • Allocating and securing resources to support the priorities
  • Building structures to invite and appropriately engage partners, other needed community members and advisors into the work of the Alliance
  • Establishing consistent evaluation and data sharing processes and practices
  • Adding new committees or work group options to the Alliance
  • Standardizing feedback mechanisms across efforts the Alliance is responsible for providing
Phase 3:  Reflection and Adjustment (12 -18 months)

The Alliance will strengthen and formalize practices around how data is used to inform decision-making and how data and decisions will inform how practices or priorities should be adjusted.

Phase 4:  Sustaining (on-going)

The Alliance will have embedded practices established in earlier phases, engaged in regular cycles for reflection and adjustment and developed a monitoring system robust enough to track improvement and forewarn of changing conditions.