Cleveland data around ending youth homelessness part of new A Way Home America community dashboard

The national initiative to build the movement to prevent and end homelessness among young people—known as A Way Home America—recently unveiled the first data set from its nationwide youth homelessness Community Dashboard effort, which included data from Cleveland.

The AWHA Community Dashboards are a new way to help:

• Understand how effectively homeless systems are serving young people
• Create a picture of youth homelessness across various communities
• Test and demonstrate the power of implementing community-driven methods for measuring progress toward ending youth homelessness
• Aggregate comparable data on youth homelessness across the country

The data from Cleveland are collected and contributed by the partners of A Place 4 Me—a cross-sector initiative that harnesses the strengths and resources of its partners to prevent and end homelessness among young adults age 15 to 24 in Cleveland/Cuyahoga County. A Place 4 Me is a collaboration led by a steering committee of:

• YWCA Greater Cleveland
• Cuyahoga County Department of Health and Human Services, including the Division of Children and Family Services and the Office of Homeless Services
• FrontLine Service
• Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland
• Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative

Notably, the Cleveland community as led by A Place 4 Me was selected and successfully executed the nation’s first 100-Day Challenge to End Youth Homelessness alongside Los Angeles and Austin in 2016.

“As we work to share best practices and ensure strong investments in addressing youth homelessness, we know that understanding our data is the difference between small shifts and big change,” said Megan Gibbard, AWHA executive director, at the unveiling of the new Community Dashboards. “Cleveland, Connecticut, El Paso County, Ohio BOS and Washington D.C.:  We applaud you. Thank you for your leadership in sharing your community snapshots with partners across the movement.”

“By publicly tracking progress, we point our communities toward the goal of—not managing or addressing youth homelessness—but effectively ending it,” said Gibbard. AWHA will ensure the Community Dashboard aligns with the USICH Criteria and Benchmarks, once established and finalized by USICH and its federal partners.

A Way Home America and the Rapid Results Institute launched the 100-Day Challenge last September in three communities: Cleveland, Austin and Los Angeles. The Cleveland team was led by A Place 4 Me. The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland is a ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System.