Homeless Youth Solutions Initiative

History of HYSI

Fall 2020: News Review front page article highlights closure of Casa De Belen, the community’s low-barrier and prominent teen homeless shelter.

An alarmed email is sent out soon after to dozens of community stakeholders by Rick Burton, the Director of Student Services of Roseburg Public Schools. Subsequently, Robin Hill-Dunbar, Senior Program Officer for Children, Youth and Families at The Ford Family Foundation coordinates a massive Zoom call. By the end of a series follow-up conference calls, a squad of leaders decides to volunteer among the meeting participants to carry the energy forward and formalize an initiative to ‘find’ new homeless youth solutions.

Spring 2022: The HYSI team has met regularly and established a shared vision for their work. The initiative also found a long-term home as the sub-committee of the larger community collaborative, Creating Community Resilience.

It is at this time that two major documents are published assisting community-wide stakeholders to understand the complexity of the work and how the initiative may continue to deepen conversations for shared learning and more impactful efforts to meet the needs. The first document, ‘The CSH Youth Housing Needs Assessment Summary Report’ was published by the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) after the Oregon Department of Human Services, Self-Sufficiency Programs (ODHS)engaged CSH to complete a statewide needs assessment to determine the continuum of housing and service needs for youth experiencing homelessness. HYSI leaders were tasked directly by CSH to co-host a series of coordinated virtual meetings to have youth from a defined southern region of the state provide their input to the ideal solutions for systems in our rural communities. The second document, the ‘Douglas County Youth Homelessness Roadmap’ was prepared by LeSar Development Consultants after investment from City of Roseburg, SW Oregon Workforce Investment Board, Phoenix School, The Ford Family Foundation, and Umpqua Health Alliance. The ‘roadmap’ outlined 42 recommendations in six major categories: Capacity Building, Prevention & Diversion, Outreach, Emergency/Interim Services, Workforce and Income Supports, and Housing. Some of these recommendations are relatively easy to implement in a short amount of time, such as expanding training. Some are substantially more time and resource intensive, such as expanding shelter options. These recommendations were designed based on the quantitative and qualitative information available on youth homelessness in Douglas County.

Summer 2024:   The Oregon Department of Housing and Community Services (OHCS) recognizes the work of HYSI via two key funding endeavors.

First, the award of a competitive General Housing Assistance Program Capacity Building grant for a quarter of million dollars to Peace at Home Advocacy Center for their further development of existing processes and policy to make them sophisticated enough to expand their affordable housing portfolios for the rural community. Second, the award of Youth Emergency Housing Assistance funds to increase services and assistance to school-aged, K-12 children or their families who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of experiencing homelessness. The almost one million dollars in funding awarded to Family Faith and Relationship Advocates (FARA) provides housing-focused services aimed at reducing barriers for individuals facing homelessness or housing instability with the goal of family stability and school success. The funding further lends to HYSI’s ability to establish and promote intentional collaboration between the educational system and housing providers via a network of community ambassadors and mentors.

The initiative has taken a ‘design team’ methodology with the project leads serving as the key champions for their team’s project. These HYSI ‘project teams’ informally conduct networking and program activities as designed by their champion, as well as engage in a learning community that focuses on system level change. The initiative is structured to have overall leadership from two co-chairs, currently Thomas McGregor and Robert Miller, leading the monthly meetings. Creating Community Resilience staff, Mckenzy Shultz, also provides continually administrative support for the entire HYSI team’s efforts. The team also has a dedicated virtual ‘Basecamp’ to help share resources and communications.

The monthly HYSI meetings have a set agenda of first connecting with ‘community check-in’, a routine start of business through gaining an alignment by the project team leads giving brief reports of their team’s recent work, then simple old business / new business items to keep the progress of items for decision making by the greater HYSI group. Each quarter, the team’s schedule a shared learning speaker as well.

The effort’s monthly meetings are hybrid virtual and open invite to any community partners committed to the HSYI mission. Numerous individuals from multiple agencies have interfaced with the work. These include local school district leaders, community action coordinators, system of care personnel, law enforcement agency staff, and various personnel from local community-based nonprofit organizations. The team seeks to expand our geographic reach of participants from throughout the Douglas County zone, especially knowing that the highest percentages of homeless youth reside in communities distant from the community’s central hub of Roseburg.

What We Do