Centering lived experience follows the social justice maxim of “nothing about us without us.” The addition of an Ombuds Office also gives people experiencing homelessness a central point-of-contact for seeking service improvements.Ĭentering lived experience also recognizes the structural racism that has perpetuated the racially disparate impacts of homelessness. Personal experience with homelessness provides insights into how the system works (or doesn’t work) that are based in real life. The RHA is explicit about centering the perspectives of people who have personal, lived experience with homelessness, and representatives of the Lived Experience Coalition sit on our Governing Board. As a result, the RHA will hold the primary responsibility for dramatically reducing homelessness. With the creation of the RHA for Seattle and King County, and as more cities in our region sign on to this approach, we are consolidating policy-making and funding, coordinating service delivery, and adopting common performance measures. The RHA is transforming a fragmented series of programs and departments into a unified, streamlined and coordinated system, built on equity and social justice principles, centering the voices of those most affected. We heard from people with personal experience that the old system’s services were geographically and administratively disconnected, data collection was duplicative, burdensome, or not useful, and people sometimes faced dead ends rather than meaningful support. The Regional Homelessness Authority, which started up operations in mid-2021, is unifying and coordinating what was previously a fragmented approach-there were many programs, but they weren’t connected or coordinated towards consistent goals. The Regional Homelessness Authority has a human-centered theory of change that guides our work: If we create a homeless response system that centers people with lived experience, then we will be able to meet needs and eliminate inequities, in order to end homelessness for all.
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