WIHI: QI Takes on Veteran and Chronic Homelessness

Date: October 12, 2017

Featuring:

• Jake Maguire, MA, Principal, Community Solutions, Built for Zero
• Beth Sandor, Principal, Community Solutions, Built for Zero
• Nate French, Senior Improvement Advisor, Community Solutions
• Ninon Lewis, MS, Executive Director, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

On any given night of the year, the nation's homeless veterans number around 40,000; another estimated 84,000 fit the definition of chronically having no place to live.

Frustrated by the seemingly entrenched situation, a group called Community Solutions​has been using tools and methods and campaign-style momentum adopted from IHI and the health care quality improvement movement to decrease homelessness in the US. Their improvement science approach coupled with a strategy called Built for Zero​ is leading to impressive results.

Community Solutions has taken a rigorous, relentless, real-time, data-driven approach — including careful tracking of individuals by name, and the engagement of a wide range of social services and supports — and they're demonstrating that homelessness can be dramatically reduced. On this episode of WIHI, Jake Maguire, Beth Sandor, and Nate French from Community Solutions  describe communities how they have increased their monthly rates of housing homeless individuals by an average of 266% over four years.