A New Approach to Solving Street Homelessness
Urban Vision Alliance is developing a new approach for collaboration that is focused on bringing together key stakeholders across the homelessness industry, the private sector, the public sector, and the community to end street homelessness. We’re building alliances to facilitate comprehensive and coordinated solutions by leveraging land, capital, and expertise from across sectors. Our purpose is to bring these key stakeholders together in a participatory movement to deliver large scale solutions.
UVA’s Collective Action Approach
Collective Action brings people together to achieve social change. To achieve this, UVA is dedicated to convening stakeholders around synergies and facilitating new ways to collaborate more deeply. By creating opportunities for the private sector to participate in addressing street homelessness, we can unlock new innovative tools and approaches to create a better experience, faster, for more people at a lower cost.
Using the framework of Collective Action, UVA will facilitate stronger collaboration with key political leaders, service providers, companies, and the community together on a single plan, aligning on the why, the how, and the what.
Work Together, Win Together
Our Model
What differentiates us from other approaches is that we have created a vital, new role in the homelessness landscape — one that facilitates strategy, planning, connection, and integration — resulting in a new level of collaboration across all key stakeholders from the real estate industry to homelessness providers to the private and public sectors and the community.
INCLUSIVE, COLLECTIVE IMPACT
By moving from fragmented efforts to collaborative planning through visibility of projects, people, and companies, we inspire and provide an inclusive process for all stakeholders to participate in, and support, larger, coordinated solutions.
SYSTEM-LEVEL DESIGN
By focusing on the homeless population, operations, capacity, and dynamics across a city, we can analyze the system to create targeted solutions collaboratively with stakeholders across an array of industries to end street homelessness together.
A CITY-WIDE SCOPE
By developing a plan that is comprehensive, we catalyze shared investment for all stakeholders to participate and collaborate, providing the required confidence that everyone’s efforts will lead to widespread change.
ECONOMICALLY EFFICIENT SOLUTIONS
By using the transformational housing model coupled with existing land, innovative construction methods, and better integration of services, a city will have the capacity and coordination to serve more people, with better outcomes, at a lower cost.
PRIVATELY LED PUBLIC PARTNERSHIPS
By engaging the real estate industry and the business sector to take a stronger role in homeless facilities expansion and by creating the opportunity for homelesssness providers to better integrate programs, we provide the credibility and clarity needed to mobilize the larger community and create a comprehensive solution.
Our Services
In partnership with our diverse alliance of experts, we deliver strategic planning as well as execution.
Expanding programmatic housing to meet the need
Sourcing land for long-term use
Supporting building development and expansions
Identifying temporary land use for interim housing
Designing better services, for more people, at lower cost
Coordinating and integrating different services
Facilitating partnerships among service providers
Sharing best practices from across the nation
Securing financial, political, and community support
Coordinating fundraising efforts
Securing political support for citywide plans
Engaging the community to participate in the solution
To Clarify:
We don’t buy land or own buildings
We focus on transformational housing, but we work on all types
We are not a service provider or transitional housing operator but we partner with them
We are not just an advisor; we actively partner to drive projects
We are not a real estate developer; we work across the entire homelessness ecosystem
The Future of Homelessness Solutions
As a community, we need to change the way we view people experiencing homelessness, and how we support them during their most difficult times. Clearly, our current approach is not keeping up with the pace at which people find themselves without a place to live. To combat this crisis, we need stakeholders to focus on a comprehensive, systems level, and human-centered approach.
OUR VIEW
The future of homelessness planning depends upon stakeholders and policy makers recognizing that cities need more than just enough affordable housing. Cities also need a portfolio of specialty housing and programs that align to the needs of the different segments of the homeless population. The focus of these programs must center on meeting people where they are, and supporting them toward the best possible outcomes.
A NEW APPROACH
This strategy shifts us from previous prison-like or refugee camp-like shelter approaches or overly narrow housing only approaches to a modern, “supportive campus” approach combined with various types of permanent and affordable housing. Transformational campuses can be contiguous or spread across a city in an urban campus format. Haven for Hope in San Antonio, TX represents a 10+ year case study of the effectiveness of this direction with lessons learned that can be taken further.
Ways to Join Us
Donate
Every dollar leads to positive impact.
Be an Ambassador
Use your connections for a cause.
Join the Alliance
We’re looking for companies that care.