About the Coalition

A Launch Committee*, an ad hoc committee that came together in 2021 to update Heading Home, was composed of nonprofit agencies serving the unhoused, people with lived experience, and the City of Evanston’s interim manager. The launch committee reviewed the plan and determined the following:

• The Heading Home 2012 plan is still largely applicable, and most of its recommendations are correct. It needed minor improvements to bring it up to date to reflect the current services of the Coalition to End Homelessness in Evanston (the Coalition).

• The plan’s six original recommendations remain correct, except for the first one, “Establish a Housing and Homeless Commission.”[1] As a result, few of the plan’s goals were achieved.

• The creation of a new governing authority that would be responsible, and accountable to the Coalition, for implementing a New Framework for Ending Homelessness in Evanston 2022 plan, is necessary.

• A community-based effort that includes the implementation of solutions by municipal government as well as nonprofit organizations and residents, all acting as equal partners, is critical to the solution, but only if there is an entity that is responsible for the results.

The Launch Committee then set about searching for solutions, in 2021, that would address its findings, by taking the following steps:

• Benchmarked the plans of three cities and one nonprofit organization for ending homelessness: Oak Park, Illinois; Rockford, Illinois; Sacramento, California; and the strategic plan of the Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County (the Alliance), of which Evanston is a member

• Using what was learned in the benchmarking process and discussions, drafted A New Framework for Ending Homelessness in Evanston.

Purpose

The Launch Committee represented the Coalition to End Homelessness in Evanston. The committee was intended to be a launching pad for the belief that homelessness could and would be ended in Evanston. The Launch Committee proposed to completing three deliverables for the Coalition:

1. Identify a permanent governing authority that has accountability for owning the plan to end homelessness in Evanston, will have fiscal authority, will generate government and community approval for the plan in the City of Evanston, and will be responsible for the plan’s implementation. 

2. Develop a structure that identifies stakeholders’ roles in the plan to end homelessness.

3. Hold two community meetings with stakeholders to get their buy-in and activate their roles in the plan to end homelessness.