AAA and CoC Partnerships to Prevent Homelessness
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 (HRS). These AAA–CoC partnerships are uniquely positioned to stimulate community-level innovations that prevent and reduce homelessness among older adults. Such partnerships that already exist have improved access to housing navigation services and preemptively addressed causes of homelessness in at-risk individuals to help prevent the losses of their homes in the first place.
USAging, partnering with the National Alliance to End Homelessness, aims to use a grant from Next50 to foster more and stronger partnerships between AAAs and CoCs to reduce rates of older adult homelessness.
The project will gather information and success stories from various innovative AAAs and CoCs around the country already engaging in partnerships and use 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.
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. Many AAAs provide housing and homelessness services, with 20 percent operating a homelessness intervention and/or prevention program and 81 percent of AAAs providing one or more program or service 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