One of the biggest problems with the way we have localized the response to homelessness in this country is that as a sector / industry / movement, we have failed to create a common understanding of how the parts of a homeless system of care typically fit together. 

Worse, we often rebrand or use inconsistent terminology for different programmatic interventions, thus making it even harder for both policymakers AND people experiencing homelessness to understand how the system works. 

STEPS

There are a limited number of building blocks that go into a homeless system of care. They include:

• Societal Issues - The policies and conditions that are making it more likely for individual crises to result in episodes of homelessness (e.g., the cost of rental housing, declining real wages, systemic racism, access to behavioral health services)
• Prevention - Trying to stop homelessness before it happens (typically involves legal or financial assistance)
• Diversion - Trying to find rapid housing solutions outside of the traditional homeless service system, such as reconnecting a person with family or friends (sometimes called "problem solving")
• Coordination - The data sharing, case conferencing, and other service navigation processes that coordinate efforts across providers
• Outreach - Social workers or case managers who engage people in unsheltered settings
• Basic Needs - Services to help people with basic survival (e.g., drop-in centers, food, hygiene, laundry) 
• Shelter - Short-term housing to help people avoid sleeping on the street (can take many forms, including: congregate, non-congregate, safe parking, tiny homes, motel vouchers, etc.)
• Long-Term Assistance - Ongoing subsidized housing that includes wraparound support services (permanent supportive housing is the data driven solution to chronic homelessness)
• Medium-Term Assistance - Time-bound case management and housing assistance for people with lower levels of acuity who have a path back to self-sufficiency (e.g., rapid rehousing programs)
• Finding Units - The actual process of identifying housing units, whether through landlord recruitment, building new housing, master-leasing, or shared housing

STEPS is intended to show how these building blocks tend to fit together. Importantly, all of these program components are undergirded by a second S - Systems. This refers to the principles and policies that tie all of these pieces together:

• Structure - Meetings, policies and procedures, and other ways of driving system-level collaboration
• Funding - Ensuring aligned and leverage resource allocations
• Team - The actual people doing the work, from frontline staff to executive leadership
• Equity - Ensuring the system is producing equitable outcomes
• Lived Experience / Expertise - Ensuring the system is informed by the people who are utilizing it
• Data - The metrics and outcomes providing overall accountability and feedback
• Story - The way our work engages the broader public

Orientation

STEPS in its own right is an extremely powerful tool for helping for helping local communities better organize their local response. For example, it can help:

• Quantify current and/or future spending
• Create a basis for strategic planning
• Help providers determine their service niche(s)
• Provide community engagement and understanding

However, there is an even deeper and more important insight here.

If the building blocks for a homeless system of care are generally the same in every community, then it stands to reason that if you compared all of the various approaches to a given building block, "optimal" approaches would emerge (i.e., best practices).

Thus, STEPS can not only help to coordinate better locally, it also serves as a framework to orient local communities to "north stars" for what is working elsewhere. 

AHEAD

If STEPS is the what, AHEAD is the how. 

The secret ingredient spurring the communities that are making the most progress reducing homelessness is simple - it's sparking and sustaining momentum. 

Momentum looks like having clear, baseline data on the current system, identifying programmatic benchmarks that are more effective than the status quo, rapidly piloting new approaches, measuring the impact, and then repeating the process.

 AHEAD is simply a way of visualizing this feedback loop.

• A - Assess: Gather baseline data, solicit feedback from key stakeholders, and use STEPS to evaluate the current system.
• H - Hypothesize: Identify workstreams that would most improve challenges surfaced during the initial analysis.
• E - Execute: Implement the changes identified in the previous step, ideally using quarterly “action cycles.”
• A - Analyze: Collect data and feedback to compare to the initial baseline and also to measure quarterly improvements.
• D - Decide: Continually revisit the original hypothesizes and do more of what is working and less of what isn’t.