November 1989
McKinsey & Company issues its Final Report-Developing a Community Partnership for the Homeless-to the D.C. Homeless Coordinating Council, establishing the need and mission for the Community Partnership.
December 1989
The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness is incorporated with an initial Board of Directors chaired by developer Oliver C. Carr and with members representing government, business and nonprofit providers.
June 1993
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development {HUD} Secretary Henry Cisneros and District Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly announce that “the Community Partnership” will receive $20 million from HUD over a three year period to establish a “Continuum of Care” consisting of three basic components: (1) outreach and assessment, (2) transitional housing with support services, and (3) permanent housing.
September 1993
The D.C. Initiative: Working Together to Solve Homelessness report is issued, establishing additional prevention, outreach and system coordination objectives as well as 2,050 new units of transitional and permanent housing to be created within the first two years.
May 1994
The D.C. Initiative officially begins with a Memorandum of Understanding signed between HUD, the District of Columbia and the Community Partnership. The first 12 grants of the D.C. Initiative are awarded.
June 1994
The District’s City Council, chaired by Councilman David A. Clarke, affirms the selection of the Community Partnership as the entity which will implement the DC Initiative.
August 1994
The D.C. Initiative Operational Plan is released, laying out a set of four guiding principles and a set of practical steps for achieving the benchmarks.
September 1994
The Community Partnership realizes its first success in obtaining federal competitive homeless funding for $2.9 Million in Shelter Plus Care funding, beginning a 15-year success story of obtaining federal competitive funds to build the Continuum of Care.
February 1995
The Community Partnership issues a revised D.C. Initiative Operational Plan in light of the District’s severe financial crisis; despite $4 million less in expected District funding, all emergency services are preserved and progress toward achievement of the D.C. Initiative benchmarks.
April 1995
The D.C. Initiative Outreach Demonstration Program is launched, working with seven outreach agencies to identify, house and deliver ongoing services to chronically homeless persons living in the streets. As with the HOME Program for Families, this program took a “housing first” approach to get people off the streets.
March 1996
With the District’s Department of Housing and Community Development, the HOME Program for Families is launched, one of the earliest models in the nation of “Housing First” as a route away from homelessness. The $1.4 million in HOME block grant funds provided rental assistance for 141 families who moved out of shelters into housing and were assisted for up to two years with case management services funded by the D.C. Initiative. The program provided valuable lessons that would be incorporated into later “housing first” programs managed by the Community Partnership.
June 1996
The central intake facility for families at 25 M Street SW is re-dedicated as The Virginia Williams Family Resource Center, ushering in a total makeover that includes a new interior design with welcoming colors, a childcare area, comprehensive social services both for intake to shelters and prevention of homelessness, job services and housing counseling.
June 1997
The D.C. Initiative Outreach Demonstration Report is released. The report showed that the program had brought 40 persons into housing in its first year and recommended that the program be continued as the Special Outreach Program. This program laid the groundwork for the Community Partnership to establish the Chronic Homeless Initiative.
November 1997
The Fannie Mae Foundation releases its “Where Homeless Families Come From” report, based on homeless families’ point-of-origin data provided by the Community Partnership and the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center. The data show concentrations of family homeless in distressed neighborhoods suggesting that families might avoid shelter if housing assistance and services were available to them at the point of crisis. Before the end of 1997 the Community Partnership issues a concept paper called Community-Based Care for Homeless Families: An Alternative to Emergency Shelter.
May 1998
The Home First program is launched as collaboration between the Community Partnership and the Commission on Mental Health Services (CMHS, later the Department of Mental Health).
Using $200,000 in District homeless services funds to pay for the housing, along with CMHS mainstream mental health services delivered by its providers, this “housing first” program built upon the Special Outreach Program to bring mentally ill, chronically homeless people directly off the streets into a home. The demonstration went on to become the Home First II program which became a regular feature of DMH’s programming for homeless clients.
August 1998
The Enterprise Foundation publishes A Report on the Existing Conditions and Opportunities for the District of Columbia’s Homeless and Housing Services System. The District government had requested the report to evaluate changes made during the D.C. Initiative. The report recommended that the District retain the Community Partnership in that role.
May 1999
The Community Partnership along with nine other CoC jurisdictions around the country drafted a National Request for Proposals for the development of a database management system to collect data on the homeless population.
The D.C. Initiative ends. HUD funding for the D.C. Initiative is closed out, but all the major new programs started during the Initiative are continued with other HUD or District funding. The Community Partnership continues to administer the system under a 6-month contract awarded after a competitive procurement process.
October 1999
The D.C. Initiative Winter Plan is published, beginning what would become an annual process of formulating a Winter Plan that continues to the present day. The planning process includes government, providers, advocates and formerly homeless people who work together before the onset of winter to plan the provision and coordination of outreach services and shelters to protect the lives of homeless people living on the streets.
After an open competition, The Department of Human Services awards a 5-year contract to the Community Partnership to continue its management of the Continuum of Care.
November 1999
The Community Care Grant Program is established. From 1999 to 2008 the program helped hundreds of families at imminent risk of homelessness avoid shelter and get back on track to self sufficiency. The National Alliance to End Homelessness designated this program as a National Best Practice.
January 2000
Culminating a process of community input by more than 100 stakeholders that began in 1998, the Community Partnership assisted the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth and Families in formulating a 2000-2004 Strategic Plan as a guide for maintaining and continuing to improve homeless services after the D.C. Initiative.
January 2001
The Community Partnership, working with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, conducts its first annual Point-in-Time Count of the Homeless. In the years since then the Community Partnership has provided regional leadership in analyzing the annual point-in-time data for the Metropolitan region and this report has become the basis for measuring fluctuations in the region’s homeless population and developments in the region’s Continuum of Care systems.
May 2001
The Community Partnership launches Bowman Internet System’s Service Point as the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) to gather data on the homeless population in publicly funded programs.
June 2003
The Center for the Study of Social Policy and the Casey Foundation produces “An Assessment of the District of Columbia’s Community Care Grant Program.” The report applauds the flexible structure of the prevention program and recommends its continued funding.
October 2003
With District cabinet-level officials and department heads, the Community Partnership staff attends the federally-sponsored Policy Academy in Denver, Colorado, “Improving Access to Mainstream Services for People Experiencing Chronic Homelessness.” Out of this meeting came the formation of and nucleus for MPACT-the Mayor’s Policy Academy Team-which would take on the task of developing the District’s 10-year plan to end homelessness.
October 2004
The New York Avenue Shelter Homeless Assistance Center operated by Catholic Charities opens. The 360 bed facility provides wraparound services and 24 hour access to clients that participate in services. Services offered include Substance Abuse Counseling, Life Skills Classes, Housing and Health Services and a work detail program.
December 2004
Homeless No More, the District’s 10-year plan to end homelessness, is released by Mayor Anthony Williams. Community Partnership staff played a major role in crafting the deliberations of MPACT into a cohesive plan that continues to guide the District’s efforts to end homelessness.
January 2005
The National Alliance to End Homelessness designates the Community Partnership’s Community Care Grant Prevention Program as a Best Practice Prevention Model for homeless services agencies.
December 2005
The Community Partnership joins with District mainstream agencies to provide services and housing through a DHS Sponsored Service Fair so that families in shelter can rapidly exit the system.
September 2006
The Community Partnership is recognized by HUD with an HMIS Innovation Award for Advanced Uses of HMIS for Performance Reporting and Point in Time Enumerations.
December 2006
The Community Partnership is awarded $2 million dollars through the D.C. Emergency Rental Assistance Program to create the Housing Opportunities and Prevention Efforts program.
May 2007
The Community Partnership’s use of the HMIS for performance based contract renewals through the federal Super Notice of Funding Availability (Super NOFA) process is identified as a best practice case study by HUD in its publication Demonstrating the Uses of Homeless Data at the Local Level.
June 2007
The Community Partnership is recognized by HUD as an Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) All Star for its high level of data quality. The Community Partnership is one of 15 communities singled out for excellence in data collection and reporting from over 500 Continuum of Care organizations nationwide.
October 2007
The Community Partnership assists the Department of Human Services in closing the DC Village shelter for families by relocating families through the System Transformation Initiative (STI). The program single handedly changes the family Continuum of Care from one that provides primarily emergency shelter to one that is focused more on Transitional Housing.
The Community Partnership develops and launches Hypothermia Dashboard Reports-an interactive visual model that lets users see trends in shelter utilization in real time.
June 2008
The Community Partnership is recognized by HUD as an Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) All Star for its high level of data quality. The Community Partnership is one of 15 communities singled out for excellence in data collection and reporting from over 500 Continuum of Care organizations nationwide.
September 2008
The Community Partnership assists the Department of Human Services in housing over 400 chronically homeless men and women in the city. The city identified the most vulnerable homeless persons and the Community Partnership identified affordable housing units located throughout the city and organized relocation services.
January 2009
Washington, DC is selected as one of only 23 jurisdictions out of 500 to receive a Rapid Re-housing Grant. The program will provide rapid short and medium term rental assistance for families to exit the shelter system.
April 2013
The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness releases a report outlining the positive outcomes for Rapid Rehousing Programs in the DC CoC. The DC CoC operates rapid rehousing programs funded by HUD, the VA, and The District Department of Human Services.
May 2013
Michele Salters Williams, Chief of System Integration at The Community Partnership, testifies before the District of Columbia City Council in support of the proposed amendment to the DC Homeless Services Reform Act.
The Community Partnership releases a report on homeless and formerly homeless Veterans served in the District of Columbia CoC.
June 2013
The Community Partnership releases data on long stayers in the District of Columbia shelter system.
November 2013
As part of Veterans NOW, the Community Partnership collaborated with the DC Department of Human Services, Washington DC VA Medical Center, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the DC Housing Authority, Pathways to Housing DC, Miriam’s Kitchen, and Friendship Place housed 207 veterans between August 9 and November 31, 2013, including 96 who were chronically homeless.
February 2014
Veterans NOW, of which The Community Partnership is a core member, kicks off and continues to work towards the goal of housing over 400 homeless veterans by the end of March.
Summer 2015
TCP conducts the first Homeless Youth Census (HYC) for the District. HYC, a project established by the End Youth Homelessness Act of 2014, is an annual count of persons aged 18 to 24 who are experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity.
February 2016
The Community Partnership staff and DC government partners presented at the SLDS Best Practices Conference on how the homeless services CoC and the State Education Agency are using data to collaborate, better identify and meet the needs of homeless youth in the District.
The Patricia Handy Place for Women opens, providing new emergency and transitional housing for women in District.
May 2016
The Community Partnership and a number of government partners met with homeless service providers today as part of the effort to improve community performance in effectively serving persons experiencing homelessness.
April 2017
The Community Partnership works with the Women’s Task Force of the lnteragency Council on Homelessness {ICH) to analyze gender and household data from the 2017 Point in Time Count.
May 2017
SOLID FOUNDATIONS DC: Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Youth Homelessness is published. The Community Partnership played an important role in the development of the plan and will support implementation of the plan as DC works to prevent and end youth homelessness.
January 2018
The 2017 DC Women’s Needs Assessment Report is published, highlighting the work led by The Community Partnership and the DC ICH Women’s Task Force to conduct the first-ever survey research project to gain a deeper understanding of the characteristics, experiences and needs of these unaccompanied women who are homeless.
January 2018
TCP conducts the “Point in Time Plus,” an assessment of inflow and service patterns of persons experiencing homelessness. This quantitative study provided the community with more in-depth, narrative information from program participants to better understand what could have prevented their homelessness, what resources are needed to help them obtain housing, and what led them to seek services in the District.