One of the things that makes our work at City Relief so difficult to quantify is that no two experiences of homelessness are the same. I often remind people in training sessions that every person we meet brings a different story, and that story shapes what stability actually looks like for them.

The path forward for a man in his forties whose marriage fell apart isn’t the same as it is for a senior trying to survive while the cost of living keeps rising faster than their fixed income can handle. And it certainly isn’t the same for a young person who just aged out of the foster care system with nowhere stable to land, as it is for a woman fleeing a domestic violence situation with little more than the clothes on her back.