Just a few weeks ago, the Los Angeles chapter of Funders Together to End Homelessness held its quarterly meeting to discuss the role of advocacy in moving the needle toward ending homelessness. The big question at the meeting: What elements of a successful advocacy campaign can philanthropy support to make greater impact?

How you can catalyze change in your community?

On March 10, the Los Angeles Homeless Funders Group hosted nearly 50 foundations to talk about the role of funders networks and collaboratives in preventing and ending homelessness.

FTEH members discussed the work, successes, and challenges of our regional funders networks.

We are excited for 2014!  Here's a look at what we're doing and how you can plug in.

Formed in 2013, our newest regional funders network in San Diego is comprised of private foundations and United Ways committed to preventing and ending homelessness.  Specifically, the Homelessness Working Group transitioned from San Diego Grantmakers to become part of the growing group of public and private partners supporting the United Way of San Diego County's activities to end homelessness in the region.  The partnerships will allow United Way to capitalize on the work already done by the Homelessness Working Group since its formation in 2003, while also increasing United Way's efforts to affect system-level change.

Purpose:  To promote an effective and efficient system of housing and services to help end homelessness in San Diego County.

Goal:  To build a San Diego County network of funders who are committed to solving homelessness through leadership, education, and advocacy; strategic collaboration, alignment and focus of resources; and effective promotion and replication of evidence based practices in our community. 

Objective:  Expand philanthropic engagement in the systems change work needed to end homelessness in San Diego County.

This blog post explains in greater detail how member organizations will work together moving forward.

Primary Contact

Amy Denhart

Participating Organizations

• Alliance Healthcare Foundation
• Brailean Family Trust Equity Partners 
• McCarthy Family Foundation
• Michael McConnell
• The Parker Foundation
• San Diego Housing Commission
• United Way of San Diego County

The Funders Together to End Homelessness – Los Angeles chapter is a community in which more than thirty funder members meet quarterly to learn about and discuss new solutions to homelessness in LA County. The goal of the chapter is to build a regional network of private and philanthropic funders working to prevent and end homelessness who:

• Invest in effective, strategic, and innovative grantmaking
• Mobilize leadership, ideas, and partnerships to communicate what works and why
• Promote more efficient use of local, state, and national resources

While the 2017 Point-in-Time Count revealed that Los Angeles County has one of the largest homeless populations in the country, there is an enormous amount of collaboration, innovation, and opportunity to end homelessness as evident in some of the developments noted below:

• Funders Collaborative: Through the Home For Good Funders Collaborative, action-oriented and community-focused corporations, foundations and public agencies collaborate in shaping the strategic vision of L.A.’s work to end homelessness and increasing impact by leveraging their grantmaking. It has effectively supported services and solutions needed to reduce and end homelessness by:
  • Building the unprecedented level of public and political will in Los Angeles to address homelessness
  • Serving as a catalyst toward the planning and adoption of coordinated, comprehensive County and City plans to combat homelessness
  • Seeding systems change, including the Coordinated Entry System (CES), which streamlines housing placements across the County
    
• Coordinated Entry: CES has become the “new normal” and the former maze-like housing process is being streamlined through collaborative systems change. CES now operates on-the-ground in all areas of LA County through the support and coordination of over 100 local service providers. A team in each region now meets regularly, working together to ensure full geographic coverage by coordinating and expanding outreach, effective assistance to help clients navigate the housing system, and efficient and accurate matches to housing and non-housing resources (such as medical supports) based on the individual needs and acuity level.
• Allocation of Healthcare Funding for Housing Subsidies: The L.A. County Department of Health Services established a Flexible Housing Subsidy Pool to streamline and scale up the housing process for homeless individuals who are struggling with complex medical and behavioral health conditions.  Through non-profit owned supportive housing, affordable housing, master lease buildings, scattered site housing, and private market housing, rental subsidies are provided to the highest utilizers of DHS services who are not able to access existing subsidies. In December of 2017, the RAND Corporation released . RAND’s key findings indicated:
  • Medical and mental health service use fell sharply, particularly a 68 percent reduction in emergency room visits and 77 percent reduction in inpatient stays.
  • Across all the public services examined, the cost of services for participants declined by nearly 60 percent during their first year in the program, falling from an average of $38,146 per person to $15,358 after one year of housing

  Including the costs of PSH, the program produced a net savings of about 20 percent – for every $1 invested in the program, Los Angeles County saved $1.20 by reducing health care and other social service costs.

• Accelerating the Production of Supportive Housing: Foundations are supporting nonprofit developers to increase their pipelines, investing loan funds for acquisition and predevelopment financing, and working with local government to reduce the time it takes for permitting construction of supportive housing.

  In 2017, the FTEH-LA Network hosted several learning sessions including:

  • What’s Next for LA City & County Strategies to End Homelessness?
  • Equity and Homelessness
  • Pay for Success and Impact Investing Workshop

   

Steering Committee Members - 2018-2019

• Andrea Iloulian, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
• Chris Hubbard, California Community Foundation
• David Howden, CSH
• Emily Bradley, United Way of Greater Los Angeles
• Rosa Benitez, Weingart Foundation

Participating Organizations

The Ahmanson Foundation
Aileen Getty Foundation
Annenberg Foundation
Bank of America
California Community Foundation
The California Endowment
The California Wellness Foundation
Carl and Roberta Deutsch Foundation
Carrie Estelle Doheny Foundation
Cedars Sinai
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
CSH
Dignity Health (formerly known as Catholic Healthcare West)
Dwight Stuart Youth Foundation
Everychild Foundation
First 5 LA
George Hoag Family Foundation
HealthNet
Jewish Community Foundation
John Gogian Family Foundation
JP Morgan Chase & Co.
Kaiser Permanente
L.A. Care Health Plan
La Jolla Coin
Liberty Hill Foundation
Pfaffinger Foundation
The Ralph M. Parson Foundation
REDF
Rose Hills Foundation
Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation
Southern California Grantmakers
Specialty Family Foundation
Mark Taper Foundation
UniHealth Foundation
Union Bank of California Foundation
United Way of Greater Los Angeles
Vladimir and Araxia Buckhantz Foundation
Weingart Foundation
Well Being Trust
W.M. Keck Foundation

In 2011, Funders Together launched the regional affiliate group, Funders Together Houston. The regional affiliate group comprises public-sector, faith-based, and private funders as well as corporate partners. The group also includes an Advocacy Working Group and a Public/Private Partnerships Working Group.

Newsletter Archive

Vol. 2, Issue 3 - August 2013

Vol. 2, Issue 2 - May 2013

Vol. 2, Issue 1 - February 2013

Vol. 1, Issue 1 - September 2012

Convening Organizations

• The Andrews Foundation
• Bank of America
• The Baxter Trust
• City of Houston Housing and Development Department
• Enrico and Sandra di Portanova Charitable Foundation
• Episcopal Health Charities
• The Frees Foundation
• Greater Houston Community Foundation
• Harris County Community Services Department
• Harris County Housing Authority
• Healthcare & Nursing Education Foundation
• Heartspring Methodist Foundation
• Harry S. and Isabel C. Cameron Foundation
• Houston Endowment
• Houston Housing Authority
• Lewis and Joan Lowenstein Foundation
• The Powell Foundation
• Robert & Janice McNair Foundation
• Rockwell Fund
• The Simmons Foundation
• St. Martin's Episcopal Church
• United Way of Greater Houston

Partners

• One Voice Texas
• Corporation for Supportive Housing

Funders Together congratulates FTEH Houston on their 1-year anniversary. We’ve enjoyed collaborating with a committed group of funders working together to make an impact on their community!

More and more communities across the country are recognizing that there is incredible power in funders working together.