AAA and CoC Partnerships to Prevent Homelessness

USAging, partnering with the National Alliance to End Homelessness, is using a grant from Next50 to increase and strengthen partnerships between AAAs and CoCs to reduce rates of older adult homelessness. The Doors to Housing for Older Adults project is gathering information and success stories from various innovative AAAs and CoCs around the country already engaging in partnerships and using these findings to create an online action guide, on-demand recorded trainings and hold a virtual summit. These resources are intended to share valuable information AAAs and CoCs can use to learn from their peers and form strategic partnerships of their own.

Homelessness has many adverse effects on all people who experience it, but they can be much more pronounced on older adults, who also tend to remain homeless longer than younger adults. Additionally, older adults are the fastest growing demographic of individuals experiencing homelessness, representing 20 percent of all people who are unhoused in the United States.

One solution to address these issues is through AAA partnerships with continuums of care (CoCs) in the homeless response systems. These AAA–CoC partnerships are uniquely positioned to stimulate community-level innovations that prevent and reduce homelessness among older adults. Existing AAA–CoC partnerships have improved access to housing navigation services and preemptively addressed housing insecurity in at-risk individuals to help prevent the losses of their homes in the first place.
 
Why Do AAA–CoC Partnerships Matter?
AAAs and CoCs each lead their respective sectors in responding to community needs and have extensive networks of providers and partners. Together, they are able to stimulate network-wide changes that provide older adults with timely, coordinated support for stable housing and supportive services.

• AAAs are the local leaders on aging, helping older adults and people with disabilities live with optimal health, well-being, independence and dignity in their homes and communities. They develop, coordinate and deliver a wide range of home and community-based services that most of us will need at some point during our lives to age in place. These include information and referral, care management, nutrition programs, chore and/or personal care services, caregiver supports, transportation and health and wellness programs. Many AAAs provide housing and homelessness services, with 20 percent operating a homelessness intervention and/or prevention program and 81 percent providing one or more programs or services related to housing and/or homelessness.
• CoCs are regional or local planning bodies that coordinate homelessness response funding and provide homelessness services in a geographic area. Each CoC brings together stakeholders and partners to collect homelessness data, set priorities and coordinate service delivery to people who are at risk or already experiencing homelessness. For more information, see our press release announcing our receipt of the grant and USAging’s case studies on AAAs’ partnerships to prevent homelessness.

 
Project Lead
Molly French, Director