Getting to the Other Side

I like to analogize strategy to deciding how to cross a river. 

Simply put: 

The vision - Get to the other side 

The strategy - The game plan for doing that 

From this perspective, there are a lot of different options:

• Build a boat
• Build a bridge
• Join arms and try to ford 
• Go upstream to find a shallower place to cross

Strategy is choosing one of these paths and committing to it. 

"A strategy is a comprehensive plan designed to achieve a specific goal or set of goals. It involves identifying objectives, determining actions to achieve those objectives, and allocating resources effectively. A strategy essentially outlines how an individual or organization will reach their desired outcome."

Easy in Theory but Challenging in Practice

Good strategy involves:

1. A deep understanding of context. It is rooted in a profound, almost intuitive understanding of what is NOT going to change in the coming years. Without a focus on the long-term, strategy is reduced to flashy initiatives and short-term programs. 

2. An enduring commitment. It's clear and motivating and does not fall apart at the first roadblock. This is particularly important because the world is a complex place, and unforeseen issues and challenges will arrive. 

3. Consequences. By committing to a certain course of action, a strategy is just as much about what a team is NOT going to do as it is about what they are. Where are time, energy, and resources focused? What opportunities warrant exploration and which are simply distractions? 

To stay with our outdoor theme, a good strategy is like a compass. It orients action towards a long-term goal. There will no doubt be obstacles along the way but with enough tenacity, grit, and compounding long-term action, any future is possible.

The "No Strategy" Strategy

For the last 40 years, the homeless service sector has been operating under the "no strategy" strategy paradigm. 

Since the dawn of modern homelessness in the early 1980s, for all intents and purposes, we - the homeless service sector - have structurally decentralized the response to this crisis, leaving states, counties, CoCs, cities, and individual services providers to their own devices to figure out what to do.

This isn't working.

And I'll give a very specific example. 

One might argue that "Housing First" is / was our strategy, but Housing First perfectly illustrates my point.

Housing First emerged in the 1990s as a specific programmatic intervention for helping people experiencing chronic homelessness enter and sustain permanent supportive housing. 

As word about this approach gradually and organically spread, by the late 2010s, having grown without any real top-down accountability or fidelity to the original model, "Housing First" morphed into more of a philosophy around harm reduction. 

We can try to vilify external stakeholders who cast aversions on Housing First, but the truth is, we - the homeless service sector, because of our structural fragmentation, let it grow without guardrails, we under-invested in the programmatic elements that made it a success in the first place, we began to badmouth it among ourselves, and we failed to effectively advocate for the resources we needed to implement it at scale. 

But here's the thing about empowerment.

If it was just a matter of getting attacked from the outside, that's one thing. There is very little that can be done about that.

If, however, we are honest and clear about the things we do control and influence - well, it is very quickly evident that there is a lot of thing we can in fact change and improve.

Taking a Really Big Swing

At the risk of taking a very big swing and missing, I would humbly propose the following for our sector's consideration:

For the next five years, our strategic intent is to build a shared understanding of homeless systems of care that sparks accountability and inspired competition among peers within the 120 largest urban and suburban CoCs.

There is so much more to say (and edit and revise and improve on). And my sincere hope is that the document linked below becomes that forum. It is an open-source space for Change Makers to come together and begin to reverse the structural fragmentation that has been plaguing our response to homelessness for the last 40 years. 

So, do you want to help?

Are you one of those Change Makers?