What does an end to homelessness look like? The city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada is on the road to finding out. 

It isn’t every day that the work I do at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is called “audacious,” but when one of our partners described our collective efforts to end family homelessness in Washington State with precisely this word, I took it as a compliment.  

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. 

I’m never quite sure what the reaction will be when I mention the concept of “public-private partnerships” to a colleague.

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

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius gave the keynote address at the National Conference on Ending Homelessness.

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.

In January 2012, Mayor Kasim Reed launched an initiative to dramatically reduce street homelessness in Atlanta. 

Last October, a group of 80 invited leaders from philanthropy, government, and the private sector gathered in Seattle to think about ways to fundamentally transform how we work with vulnerable children and their families.