From April 7th to 8th, 2016, Foundations for Youth Success members gathered in Minneapolis to learn about the inspiring work happening in the state to end youth homelessness. The convening included a presentation on Heading Home: Minnesota's Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, a site visit to YouthLink, and peer exchanges with colleagues and Minnesota funders.
Picture of YouthLink welcome center wall.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Our meeting opened with everyone identifying something they wanted to learn or leave with at the end of the week. Those ideas are shared in the picture below.
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Preventing and Ending Homelessness in Minnesota
Our convening started with a welcome from our host and FYS colleague, Laura Kadwell. Laura heads the Heading Home Minnesota Funders Collaborative. Laura was joined by Cathy ten Broeke, State Director to Prevent and End Homelessness and Director of the Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness, and Andrea Simonett from the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Together the speakers provided the group with an overview of Minnesota's Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness and details of the plan focused specifically on youth.
Heading Home: Minnesota's Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness (The youth part of the plan begins on page 37)
For more information Cathy can be reached at [email protected] and Andrea can be reached at [email protected].
Fishbowl Discussion with Minneapolis Public System Representatives
For our fishbowl discussion speakers joined us from various systems that provide services to youth experiencing homelessness in Minnesota. Speakers included the following:
Travis Gransee, Director, Dodge, Fillmore, Olmsted County Community Corrections at Olmsted County Minnesota
Beth Holger-Ambrose, Executive Director of The Link
Jim Koppel, Assistant Commissioner for Children and Family Services, MN Department of Human Services
Jodi M. Wentland, Division Director, Olmsted County Community Services
A Way Home America
During our break we heard an update on A Way Home America (AWHA). Some helpful documents are included below. The big news is that A Way Home America has hired a Director, Megan Gibbard. If you have any questions about A Way Home America or would like to get more involved many of your fellow FYS colleges are involved in leading this effort. Jennifer can connect you to the appropriate resource.
A Way Home America - Vision Paper
A Way Home America - Structure
A Way Home America - Policy Updates
Mapping Community Systems and Services
After lunch we were joined by a graphic recorder to help visualize the systems and services that can help prevent and end youth homelessness. We began the discussion by thinking about the young people who interact with the homelessness system and identifying the "archetypes" of young people at risk of experiencing homelessness. These characteristics were placed in the middle of our paper to represent a youth centered system.
After identifying the the various youth characteristics, we moved on to the services that young people need to develop supportive relationships, opportunities, and to obtain or maintain stable housing. Each group identified various services and using post-its added their services to our image. These services are on the pink and yellow cards in the image. The services were then grouped using teal index cards.
The next step was identifying the systems or agencies that provided the services identified.
The final image is below. After creating our map we reflected by identifying opportunities and gaps that funders could fill as well as impediments that were keeping us from providing necessary services for youth.
We hope this image is helpful and encourage you to share with interested colleagues.
View this image larger, here.
Peer Exchange
The afternoon peer exchange took place in a "world-cafe" style. Participants moved around for different discussions to interact with with various colleagues and participants. The discussion topics were as follows:
- What creative investments have you made as a funder to create systems change in your community?
- What has your role been as a funder?
- How can we take promising or successful initiatives to scale?
Groups took notes on their discussions. Those notes and visualizations are included here.
Friday, April 8, 2016
Site Visit to YouthLink
After some reflections and breakfast we spent Friday morning visiting YouthLink. YouthLink works with homeless youth, ages 16-23 and is located in downtown Minneapolis. YouthLink is also the site for Minneapolis's Youth Opportunity Center.
After our tour and introduction to YouthLink many of our attendees wanted to hear more about the assessment and tiering process that YouthLink uses.
The Cost of Homelessness Study
After the YouthLink tour we were joined by Steven Foldes of Foldes Consulting. Steven shared the findings from his recent study, The Economic Burden of Youth Experiencing Homelessness and the Financial Case for Investing in Interventions to Change Peoples’ Lives. This study examined the economic burden of youth homelessness in Minnesota, focusing on the short- and long-term costs to taxpayers and society. The study also examined comprehensive costs of more than 1,400 16-to-24 year olds who were homeless or at risk of becoming homeless who visited YouthLink in 2011. The study found that all annual and support costs for the entire group can be covered if 89 youth (only 6.1% of the total young people in the study) were to earn enough so that they no longer need any public support, beginning at age 20.
You can view the complete paper and more information from the study on YouthLink's website, here.
Debrief and Next Steps
After the site visit we headed back to our meeting space for the debrief and to plan next steps for the community. Below are ideas from our discussion. If you have additional thoughts or ideas, please feel free to share them with Jennifer.
Thank you to everyone that was able to join us in Minneapolis. For those of you who weren't able to join us I hope you find this information helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to Jennifer.