strategic plan<\/a> outlining its priorities through fiscal year 2027. The plan, presented during a city council work session on Tuesday, is intended to provide a roadmap for targeted investments and measurable outcomes in the city\u2019s homelessness response.<\/p>\n\u201cIt’s how we will build on what’s working, scale what’s proven, and stay accountable to measurable results,\u201d said David Gray, director of the Homeless Strategy Office.<\/p>\n
According to city officials, the plan has been in development for eight months, but it will need additional revisions before council members can sign off on its adoption.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gray said that although the city has made notable progress in recent years, additional goals still need to be established.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve learned a lot about how to achieve success. We\u2019ve also learned about where some of our pitfalls are, and all that information goes into our strategic plan, which serves as our roadmap for how we\u2019ll move forward over the next two years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The plan focuses on five major areas: system leadership, impactful community investments, crisis response system management, communications and “invest in our people.”<\/p>\n
Some proposed actions include:<\/p>\n
Securing new public and private fundingImplementing a citywide outreach coordination planExpanding shelter capacity by 650 bedsEstablishing two housing navigation centersProducing an annual reportLaunching quarterly townhall meetings for providers and stakeholders <\/p>\n
Gray explained that this approach will help staff create effective policies and programs for the homeless community while ensuring taxpayers see a return on their investment. He emphasized that the main goal is to help people move from homelessness into stable housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we talk about adding shelter beds or permanent supportive housing beds or navigation centers, all of those are different strategies to help get people connected to the services that they need to get into housing and to keep that housing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gray said some aspects of the plan are already underway, including the launch of the city\u2019s Homeless Encampment Management Dashboard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cElements of those plans are already occurring,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so once adopted, our goal will be to accelerate the rest of the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council members asked the office to strengthen portions of the plan, including providing more detail on mental and behavioral health initiatives and offering a deeper analysis of permanent housing investments.<\/p>\n
City officials expect to return to council in late March with an updated version of the plan, which they hope will be ready for adoption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The plan is intended to provide a roadmap for targeted investments and measurable outcomes in the city\u2019s homelessness…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-178912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}