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.
Tools
Tools enhance service delivery by solving for a specific need. Our tools address the needs of both people experiencing homelessness and service providers.
RESOURCE LIST
The Resource List is a comprehensive, centralized, standardized, and crowdsourced list of homeless providers in Austin. The list will share accurate knowledge about services available in the community which will improve access and communication to connect people to services and end homelessness.
NAVIGATOR CHECKLIST
The Navigator Checklist gives people experiencing homelessness and navigators an easy-to-read tool to help new entrants to the system understand the process for assessing services and housing which helps the system leverage an individual's agency and reduce the duration of homelessness. Navigators and other intake workers can direct clients using a standardized checklist. This provides clients with accurate resources and opportunities for self-resolution.
EMPATHY BUILDING
CAMPAIGN
The Empathy Building Campaign has the goal of shifting the public's perception of people experiencing homelessness. The intention is to eliminate negative social biases that are associated with them and replacing these biases with the potential we all have as humans to rise up and become greater than our circumstances.
COPING ZINE
An A5 zine booklet, the Coping Zine was created by the 16 members of the Homelessness Lived Experience Advisory Group. The zine includes information on healthy coping skills for people experiencing homelessness as a more positive way of approaching difficult situations with the people they interact with on a daily basis, including case managers, service providers, employers, and the public.