The Edmonton Homeless Serving System
A homeless-serving system comprises a range of local or regional service delivery components serving those who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness. The Edmonton homeless-serving system, like other counterparts across the world, is comprised of key components or building blocks that work towards system goals.
Essential Elements in Homeless-Serving System Planning
Planning and Strategy Development process follows a systems approach grounded in the Housing First philosophy.
Organizational Infrastructure is in place to implement homelessness plan/strategy and coordinate the homeless-serving system to meet common goals – also referred to as System Planner Organization.
System Mapping to make sense of existing services and create order moving forward.
Coordinated Service Delivery to facilitate access and flow-through for best client and system-level outcomes.
Integrated Information Management aligns data collection, reporting, intake, assessment, and referrals to enable coordinated service delivery.
Performance Management and Quality Assurance at the program and system levels are aligned and monitored along common standards to achieve best outcomes.
Systems Integration mechanisms between the homeless-serving system and other key public systems and services, including income assistance, justice, child intervention, health, immigration/settlement, domestic violence, and poverty reduction.