Through Funders Together, we have learned a great deal about the vast needs facing veterans in Houston. Much to our surprise, Houston has the second largest returning-veteran population and there is great need for private philanthropic support, coordination of services, and collaboration among local agencies.

In his forum, Rob Reich claims that, at their best, foundations foster pluralism and encourage discovery. But in my experience foundations can do much more.

Many systems touch at-risk and homeless families: foster care, child welfare, crisis response, mental health services, and schools, to name a few–but no one system will solve family homelessness alone. 

Despite different geographic and population focuses in our homelessness initiatives, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Conrad N. Hilton Foundation are unified in our belief that philanthropy can play a critical role in preventing and ending homelessness.

Changing the way we do business has the potential to improve outcomes for families who are homeless across each of our communities.  

When we first became involved with homelessness, we noticed that the national focus and most of the local work was on ending chronic homelessness.  While we applauded this effort, we wanted to see the 10-year community planning process include homeless families as well. 

Homelessness is a complex issue but it is not an unsolvable problem. It can be ended and philanthropy has a vital role to play.

Connecticut has a new plan to end homelessness.

If we are going to successfully end homelessness and fight poverty, we must come up with ideas to do more with less. 

The Butler Family Fund has taken a two-pronged approach: we’ve addressed both our limited resources and the desire to make the most impact on ending homelessness.