Bulletin Board
The place where you can stay up to date with the latest events, stories, news, and opportunities for our City Relief community.
The Crisis is Layered. The Solution Must Be Too. | Our Efforts Week 7
Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked about Housing First, Shelter First, and Enforcement First. And if there’s one thing I hope this series has made clear, it’s this: Homelessness is not a simple problem with a single “one size fits all” solution.
It’s an ocean fed by many rivers: rising housing costs, trauma, mental illness, addiction, disability, economic instability, family breakdown, and systems that are often too complicated to navigate while in crisis.
Which means no single solution can carry the full weight of the problem on its own.
Shelter Isn't Housing - Here's Why That Matters | Our Efforts Week 5
Last week, I introduced you to James. A man who, on paper, qualified for help, but in reality, couldn’t access it. Not because he didn’t want it. Not because help didn’t exist. But because the system required something he didn’t have: stability.
And that’s exactly why approaches like Housing First were created. Because for someone like James, asking him to get stable before giving him housing is like asking him to solve the problem without the very thing that makes a solution possible.
But to really understand why that matters and why the conversation around homelessness can feel so confusing, we need to get clear on something foundational:The difference between shelter and housing.
Housing First, Not Housing Only - Our Efforts Week 4
So even though help technically existed, it remained out of reach. That gap between eligibility and accessibility is where people like James get stuck. Which brings us to one of the most talked-about approaches to homelessness: Housing First.
Housing First began in the early 1990s through the work of Sam Tsemberis in New York City. At the time, most programs required people to prove they were “housing ready” before being given access to permanent housing.
Housing First flipped that.