The webinar discusses homelessness in Atlanta, highlighting the efforts of the Gateway Center, which serves over 9,000 homeless individuals annually by providing essential services and support to help them achieve self-sufficiency. Key achievements include placing over 5,800 individuals in permanent housing, assisting with employment for more than 4,800 individuals, and serving over 1 million meals. The presentation emphasizes the importance of collaboration among local jurisdictions, service providers, and community organizations to effectively address homelessness and improve living conditions for affected individuals.

1. Webinar: Homelessness Around Atlanta
December 15, 2011
www.publicsquareatlanta.org

2. Vince Smith Phil Hunter
Executive Director, Gateway Center Director, Homelessness, Unite
d Way of Metropolitan Atlanta

3. Looking Back, Moving Forward

4. Vince Smith is the founding director of the Gateway Center, a keystone
project of the United Way Regional Commission on Homelessness and
one of the largest homeless services centers in Georgia. The Gateway
Center served more than 9,000 homeless men, women, and children in
2008 and works to restore homeless individuals to self-sustainability. He
led the collaboration, assisted with design and planning, and gave
leadership to the opening of the Center on July 27, 2005.
Vince is a graduate of Dallas Baptist College, Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
He is an ordained Baptist minister and educator, having taught in an
adjunct capacity at several colleges and universities, including the
Emory University Candler School of Theology.
Since 1990, Vince has worked among the homeless in the Atlanta
community. He has initiated residential recovery and transitional housing
programs, as well as served in key leadership capacity to open 4 centers
focused on serving homeless men, women, and children. He is a
published author, has received several community awards for his
service, and served on the Board of Directors of TechBridge.
His passion is ending homelessness!
4

5.  The Gateway Center works to end
homelessness, and particularly chronic
homelessness, by providing the support
and framework people need to achieve
self-sufficiency.
 Through therapeutic programs and
services, the Gateway helps homeless
individuals in metro Atlanta move into
transitional and permanent housing.
5

6. Among other successes, the Gateway Center has:
 Placed more than 5,800 individuals in permanent housing
 Helped more than 4,800 individuals find employment or
enter training programs that lead to employment
 Reunited more than 8,300 people with family/friend support
systems in other states
 Assisted more than 50,000 different homeless individuals
with Gateway Center and partner services
 Provided humane services such as showers, telephones,
lockers and clothing services to over 90 people per day
 Served more than 1,000,000 meals
6

7. A Regional Approach:
 Eight jurisdictions have voluntarily come together to solve
homeless problems.
A Strong Focus:
 Commission’s strong focus is on: (1)ending chronic
homelessness (2) preventing homelessness and (3) creating a
more responsive system for the temporarily homeless.
A Collaborative Effort:
 We foster continuous communication and cooperation between
providers, federal, state and local governments, and the business
and faith community.
7

8. Our Jurisdictions
The Commission consists of eight jurisdictions, including
the City of Atlanta. Each jurisdiction has supportive
housing and programs for homeless families and
individuals.
8

9.  Prevention
 Reunified over 15,000 persons.
 UW provides over $1 million every year for prevention.
 UW coordinated $8 million through the Fresh Start
Program.
 Outreach/ Intake and Assessment
 Gateway 24/7 Homeless Service Center serves over
6,000 persons each year.
 Coordinated 7-8 outreach teams to reach out to the
vulnerable on streets and connect them with housing.
 Have 6 PATH teams doing outreach (for those with
mental illness)

10.  Supportive Housing
 Created over 2,500 units of housing with support services.
 Created over 650 units of housing for women and children.
 Working with the city, received $22 million in ADA bonds to
develop housing with support and assessment centers.
 Partnered with City of Atlanta to obtain over 300 housing
units upon closure of Fort McPherson.
 Tracked 1,200 people in housing every quarter, and
approximately 90% remain stably housed after 1 year.
 Implemented Street to Home and Hospital to Home using
“Housing First” efforts to target specific populations.
 Partnered with Veteran’s Administration resulting in over
600 veterans receiving permanent supportive housing.

11. • Supportive Housing cont.
 Supported Georgia Housing Search to provide access
to affordable housing. Over 100,000 units listed.
 Worked with AHA to have over 600 Section 8
Vouchers for homeless persons.
 Services
 Created Case Management Training Academy which
has trained more than 265 case managers metro wide
since 2008.
 Provided employment for over 1,800 homeless
persons through our partners.
 Assisted with SSDI person at First Step Benefits;
changed system of applying for benefits.
 Other
 Raised over $40 million from private funders.

12. RCOH is focused on implementing systems changes in order to
create sustainability beyond 2013. There have been major systems
changes in the following areas:
 Supportive Housing
 Created over 2,500 units of housing and implemented Housing
First.
 Benefits
 Increased rate of approvals for SSDI from 20% with a 2 year wait
to 79% in 120 days.
 Women and Children
 Changed from shelter system to collaborative assessment
centers and housing sites.
 Case Management
 Upgraded skill levels and capabilities of case managers, and
created network where agencies share resources.

13.  Working with emergency room frequent flyers
 Created giving back program for formerly homeless –
the Peers reaching out ( PRO) team
 Promoting shared apartments for single men to ensure
affordability ( over 50 apts)
 Implemented monthly case management training
 Promoting Incentives based case management
 Created The Anticipation Project – for those waiting on
benefits.
 Created VetsConnect – working with homeless veterans
13

14.  Without the collaboration and commitments of our
provider partners and the RCOH staff, the support of the
United Way, the leadership of government, and the
support of foundations and volunteers, we would not
have accomplished what we have.
 The RCOH provides leadership by identifying gaps,
helping to fill unmet needs, directing resources to the
best practices and raising the professionalism of
everyone by setting standards and measures.
14

15. United Way Regional
Commission on
Homelessness
The Street to Home Project

16. From the Streets…

17. …To Homes

18. …And Independence!

19. Street to Home Statistics
•Since 2011, the Street to Home Initiative
has reached more than 650 individuals
•More than 200 volunteers have
contributed to the outreach program
•75 percent of participants moved toward
self-sufficiency
•49 percent of participants are in permanent
housing or have moved on to other programs

20. Street to Home Video
http://www.youtube.com/user/unitedwayatlan
ta?feature=watch#p/u/13/BRDprNwx4Pg

21. Thank you all for coming today, and thanks to our speakers.
To continue the conversation, organize, and share your own efforts, we encourage you to
participate at publicsquareatlanta.org.
Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/publicsquareatl
Like us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/publicsquareatlanta
Subscribe to our blog at http://publicsquareatlanta.tumblr.com
To contact us about issues in your community or for help with Public Square Atlanta, please get in
touch with Jason Parker at jparker@pba.org.