Cycles of Risk
People who grew up in precarious home environments are more likely to raise children in similar contexts, although that’s not necessarily their intention. The risk factors associated with homelessness are especially dangerous in this way; they get passed down generationally. Studies have found a strong relationship between the amount of childhood maltreatment and family dysfunction that homeless parents experienced and the amount that their children were experiencing. Poverty has also been also associated with child maltreatment, indicating that young people are growing up exposed to the same risks their homeless parents did.
For example, women who were abused as children are more likely to become targets for violence as adults through no fault of their own. If they have children with abusive partners, then their children are at risk for poverty, abuse, residential instability, foster care placement, and many other predictors of future homelessness, creating a cycle of risk that’s extremely difficult to break out of.
The Toiletries Delivery is enabling a couple of our HACA members to build, test, and develop a toiletries delivery service that fills the gaps they see in the existing homelessness system. This process is helping us understand how we can proactively enable people experiencing homelessness to help themselves by developing opportunities for them to help their community.
The Toiletries Delivery is enabling a couple of our HACA members to build, test, and develop a toiletries delivery service that fills the gaps they see in the existing homelessness system. This process is helping us understand how we can proactively enable people experiencing homelessness to help themselves by developing opportunities for them to help their community.
The i-team's Mission
In Austin, there are over 2,000 individuals without a safe place to sleep. There are many reasons a person can become homeless, and these reasons range from the lack of affordable housing to the loss of family and community.
In 2017, the Innovation Office secured a three-year $1.25m grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies to focus on the city's goal of ending homelessness. The grant funds an
i-team to help the city identify the best ways for City Council, departments, and the community to collaborate towards a shared understanding of homelessness in Austin.
Mayor Adler on the i-team
Mayor Adler
This grant will help us tackle problems in new ways that reflect who we are in Austin, and I'm excited to see what can come from this. When we effectively ended veteran homelessness, we learned how effective new partnerships between the business community, philanthropists, and nonprofits could be. Bloomberg's grant will allow our Innovation Office to experiment with new ways to house the homeless.