Texas Homeless Network's 2021 Annual Report

THN and our partners across the state faced some of the biggest challenges in recent history this past year after an equally hard 2020. From the deadly winter storm to the ongoing pandemic,  we have seen the amount of resilience, perseverance, and drive of the people of this country and our great state. 

While we are so proud of what we’ve accomplished this year, there is still much work ahead. As an agency, we must continue to build a better future for our neighbors experiencing homelessness. We commit to strategically doing so in all aspects of our work in the following ways:

Advocacy: THN advocacy staff will remain focused on tracking and advocating for state and federal legislation that increases funding for the homeless crisis response system, reducing barriers to housing, and inclusive communities. We will continue to work with agencies and organizations around the state and country to explore ways that we can strengthen ongoing partnerships between different social service sectors.  

In 2022 THN will work with communities on campaigns to end homelessness for families. However, THN and our homeless response system partners cannot achieve this goal alone. We will advocate for the support from leaders of local, state, and federal government, corporations, faith communities, and any Texan concerned with ensuring that families are in safe, stable homes when the sun goes down each night in this state. Additionally, THN plans to work with the Texas legislature to explore concerns and potential solutions regarding homelessness subpopulations such as Veterans, families, and those suffering from Chronic homelessness through interim hearings. 

Balance of State: In the next year, we are creating new standards for projects across the state that will advance our racial justice work. THN seeks to enhance system planning for the TX BoS CoC with a focus on diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and justice. The activities for the upcoming year will focus primarily on addressing racial and ethnic disparities in experiences and outcomes for people in homeless situations who participate in homeless services in the TX BoS CoC.

The goals of this work will be:

• To promote a shared responsibility for different aspects of the planning process;
• To increase the CoC’s ability to address disparities that exist in the Coordinated Entry process;
• To coordinate with a more diverse group of stakeholders, including people with lived experience;
• To improve the monitoring and evaluation process and to promote more inclusive policy development.

The TX BoS CoC will also be implementing aspects of our CoC Strategic Plan over the next year. While the TX BoS CoC has made progress on ending homelessness, the current system and resources allocated to addressing homelessness are not sufficient to make the impact that the CoC wants and that people experiencing homelessness in the CoC deserve. The strategic plan is the next step in enhancing the housing crisis response system. This plan is intended to rally stakeholders around common CoC-level goals and to enable communities and service providers to identify local activities to support CoC-wide strategies. THN will work in partnership with the TX BoS CoC Board to implement and carry out the proposed activities from the CoC Strategic Plan. 

Some of the focus areas for the next year include:

• Standardize Coordinated Entry assessment and prioritization
• Explore regional planning and decentralized governance
• Work to strengthen and increase local providers capacity to provide housing and services
• Establish high “minimum standards” for emergency shelter providers
• Establish a workgroup within the TX BoS CoC to look at disparate impact of homelessness on Black or African American individuals
• Utilize data to help the CoC and communities identify, design solutions for, and address inequity and racial disparities
• Promote awareness of racial disparities in homelessness across the CoC
• Promote practices that create a highly empowered, engaged, equipped and trained workforce
• Advance high-quality housing and service partnerships that promote resilient and equitable communities
• Work to quickly identify and engage with all people experiencing homelessness
• Explore host homes as options for housing youth experiencing homelessness
• Continue to look for ways to incorporate non-HMIS data into system analysis and planning
• Explore ways to align funding and other resources to complement the CoC’s strategic framework 
• Provide learning opportunities for people new to homeless services
• Equip and encourage people with lived experience to use their systems expertise to positively impact local and national conversations about housing and services

Internal agency work: THN will continue to devote time to racial justice and equity work within our agency.  The work of the Racial Equity Action Team will continue through the leadership of each THN team member as this work enters its next phase. THN hopes to issue a call for proposals to bring on an outside consultant to facilitate agency-wide activities and as we involve our partners, especially those with lived experience. We are also intentionally updating policies for the inclusive and equitable hiring of staff, contracting with external entities, and recruiting for our boards and committees.