History

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 self­sufficiency. The National Alliance to End Homelessness designated this program as a National Best Practice.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.