A Look at the Current State of the ODI Partner Network in Fairfield County and Northwest Connecticut

ODI brings partners together to collectively define, measure, and create a shared regional vision for solving homelessness. It also aligns resources and efforts to maximize results, builds trust and relationships across organizations, and drives data-driven, continuous improvement efforts. Specifically, this includes continuously assessing, recalibrating, and improving the policies, practices, and protocols that form the operational foundation for the homeless emergency response systems in Fairfield County and Northwest Connecticut.

To that end, in 2023, the Housing Collective’s Housing Innovation Lab (HIL) was tasked with assessing opportunities for improvement throughout the Western CT homeless response system. The HIL anonymously surveyed frontline staff, supervisors, and Executive Directors at one hundred and fifty-one participating homeless services organizations that together make up the Opening Doors Fairfield County Continuum of Care (ODFC CoC) and the Northwest Coordinated Access Network (NW CAN), which when combined cover all of Western CT.

The survey, designed collaboratively with representatives from the Opening Doors Initiative leadership, prioritized a number of areas of inquiry:

• What is the current composition of the ODI network? Who makes up our current workforce? 
• What are the current partner network sentiments about the population(s) we serve?
• How well does the homeless response system incorporate the voices of people with lived experience of homelessness into its response to homelessness?
• What is the quality of working conditions for frontline staff across both the ODFC CoC and the NW CAN provider networks?
• How does racial and gender equity show up throughout the provider network?
• What are frontline staff and supervisors seeing as trends in the work to prevent and end homelessness? 
• What are the workforce’s professional development needs throughout the system?

These areas of inquiry were further distilled into three key research questions:

1. Is ODI sufficiently incorporating the voices of people with lived experience of homelessness?
2. How are working conditions for frontline staff throughout the ODI partner network?
3. Is ODI achieving equity throughout its partner network?

The following report summarizes key findings that offer critical insight for ODI and its network of service providers and other partners on where Western CT’s homeless response system stands in its commitment to end homelessness through collective impact. It identifies strides made towards system equity as well as calling out gaps in resources and operational processes that must be addressed to achieve systemic equity goals. 

Additionally, the report provides organizational members of ODI’s provider network valuable context regarding operational practices, allowing them to both consider their organization’s actions relative to peers’ and to better understand their impact on the larger system in which they operate. 

Finally, the HIL has analyzed the baseline information collected in the system wide survey and, working with subject matter experts on national best practices in equity, created actionable recommendations to improve the incorporation of voices of people with lived experience, to prioritize the improvement of staff working conditions and quality of life, and to address equity at both the organizational and systems levels.

The Housing Collective will dedicate HIL resources in the years ahead to measure and track long-term progress on collective goals throughout Western CT’s homeless response systems and provide tools, training, and support to the ODI partner network that anchor equity in every aspect of the system’s work.

Introduction

The Housing Collective’s Opening Doors Initiative (ODI) serves as the facilitator and “backbone” for a network of one hundred fifty-one homeless service providers throughout Western CT. Divided among two distinct, federally funded jurisdictions known as (1) Opening Doors Fairfield County Continuum of Care (ODFC CoC) and (2) Northwest CT Coordinated Access Network (NW CAN), these organizations work collectively to end homelessness and ensure stable, affordable housing is available for everyone in the Western Connecticut region. (A full list of the organizations can be found in Appendix A.) 

Together, these organizations employ hundreds of frontline staff who provide essential services to people experiencing homelessness in their communities. The Housing Collective’s Opening Doors Initiative (ODI) provides systems level coordination for this regional work, including passing through government funding to the entire network as a fiduciary, overseeing consistency of network provider service delivery, and facilitating regular partner convenings of network organizations to ensure that clients are served effectively and efficiently and that systemwide goals and metrics are collectively identified, maintained, and tracked.

Methodology

In collaboration with the Opening Doors Initiative partner network, the Housing Collective’s Housing Innovation Lab (HIL) designed an anonymous online questionnaire for distribution among frontline staff, supervisors, and Executive Directors across the homeless service provider network throughout Western CT. This survey was conducted digitally through Google Forms. 

The comprehensive survey questionnaire encompassed seven distinct sections designed to help answer the three key research questions identified as collective priorities by ODI partners. Each of the seven survey sections aligns with a priority:

Key Research Questions:

• Question #1: Is ODI sufficiently incorporating the voices of people with lived experience of homelessness?
• Question #2: How are working conditions for frontline staff throughout the ODI Partner Network?
• Question #3: Is ODI achieving equity throughout its partner network?

Corresponding Survey Sections:

1. Demographic information 
2. Staff relationships with individuals served
3. Staff working conditions 
4. Sense of community within workplace 
5. Perspectives on leadership, data, and funding 
6. The ongoing housing crisis 
7. Training needs 

The survey was conducted between September 25, 2023 and October 13, 2023, with the ODFC CoC, and between October 11, 2023 and October 20, 2023, with the NW CAN. The survey link was shared through Civic Roundtable, an online platform designed to facilitate discussion, collaboration, and information sharing among members of the network, and in the ODFC Executive Committee Meeting, NW CAN Leadership Meeting, FC CAN Leadership Meeting, and regional Housing Solutions Meetings, which are regularly attended by the target audiences: frontline staff, supervisors, and Executive Directors from the ODI partner network. Recipients were also encouraged to share it within their internal organization and networks. The survey was anonymous, and only the HIL staff analyzed the responses.

The survey was distributed via email to 370 individuals. A total of 146 individuals responded, including 85 frontline staff members, 48 supervisors, and 13 Executive Directors. In the ODFC CoC, the Lab received responses from 118 individuals, including 74 frontline staff members (31% of potential respondents), 35 supervisors (38% of potential respondents), and 9 Executive Directors (50% of potential respondents). In the NW CAN, 40 individuals responded, with 18 staff members (18% of potential respondents), 16 supervisors (50% of potential respondents), and 6 Executive Directors (50% of potential respondents). This data offers valuable insights into the survey’s critical dimensions and a solid foundation upon which to build going forward.

The survey results were compared to various public data sets to draw conclusions and inform the recommendations. To analyze the survey results in an appropriate and meaningful context, the HIL project team looked at both statewide and regional demographic data from the following publicly available sources: United States Census Bureau and DataHaven (partner of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership learning network coordinated by the Urban Institute.) 

In addition, the team reviewed all available demographic data on persons experiencing homelessness to understand how survey respondents compare to the population that they serve.

Demographic Landscape

STATEWIDE CONNECTICUT POPULATION DATA 

The United States Census Bureau reports that as of July 1st, 2023, Connecticut has a population of 3,617,176 people (Table 0A). The state is 51% female and 78.4% White. 21.4% of the population is Hispanic or Latino, 12.9% is Black, and 5.2% is Asian. Additional racial categories represent less than 4% of the population. Categories add to more than 100%, indicating that one or more does not represent a single race or ethnicity only.

REGIONAL WESTERN CT POPULATION DATA

According to the United States Census Bureau 2020 Decennial Census, there were 957,419 people living in Fairfield County (geographically synonymous with ODFC CoC). Of that combined population, 51% were female, 61% were White, 20% were Hispanic or Latino, 11.1% were Black, and 5.3% were Asian; 50.5% had a bachelor’s degree or higher.

The NW CAN includes Litchfield County and Greater Waterbury. Litchfield County had a total population of 185,186. 49.9% of the population were female, 84% were White, 7.9% were Hispanic or Latino, 1.6% were Black, and 1.9% were Asian; 38.0% had a bachelor’s degree or higher. According to Data Haven, Greater Waterbury had a total population of 339,664 in 2019. 66% were White, 18.0% were Hispanic or Latino, 8.0% were Black, 2.0% were Asian and 5.9% were other races; 33% had a bachelor’s degree or higher.

PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS POPULATION DATA

On September 26th, 2023 Survey was released in late September to ODFC and early October to NW CAN, which is why this snapshot date was selected., 3,177 people were homeless in the state of Connecticut (Table 0B). 691 people were homeless in the geography covered by ODFC CoC and 331 were homeless in the NW CAN, for a combined unhoused population of 1,022. In Fairfield, 51.92% of the population experiencing homelessness were women; in the NW CAN, 56.35% were women (Table 0C.1). 

Race and ethnicity data is not available on a CAN-by-CAN basis. However, 32.22% of the total unhoused population in CT on that date were Black, 22.22% were multiracial, 24.4% were White, and 24.28% were Hispanic/Latino (Table 0C.2). 

ODI is not yet collecting demographic data on the total ODFC CoC and NW CAN workforce population, so the HIL was unable to definitively state whether the participants in the survey are representative of the total system workforce. However, we can compare the results to the state and county-wide trends in both the total and unhoused populations (Tables 0D-0E). 

SYSTEM WIDE DEMOGRAPHIC DATA

Across the network, female respondents predominated (Tables 0F-0I), comprising 66.7% of all survey participants. This trend was even more pronounced among supervisors, where women constitute 72.9% of respondents. Transgender and nonbinary populations were notably underrepresented among respondents. In ODFC CoC, 1.7% of respondents held transgender identities, and none identified as nonbinary. Notably, all transgender and nonbinary respondents were frontline staff. No respondents in the NW CAN identified as transgender or nonbinary people. Shifting focus to sexual orientation (Table 0J), the majority (79.2%) of survey respondents identified as heterosexual, with smaller percentages identifying as asexual (3.5%), bisexual (4.9%), gay (2.1%), lesbian (1.4%), pansexual (1.4%), and 7.6% choosing not to disclose their preferences.

Survey respondents were racially and ethnically diverse (Table 0K). Black or African American individuals comprised 28.4% of respondents; White or European respondents comprised 35.1% of the total; and 20.3% identified as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin of any race. Additionally, 4.1% of respondents identified as multiracial, 2.0% as American Indians or Alaskan Natives, 1.4% as Asian or Asian American, and 0.7% as Middle Eastern. 

However, an intriguing observation arises when examining the demographics of individuals receiving services from the respondents. In this context, Blacks appear to be overrepresented among clients, while Whites are overrepresented among survey respondents. Meanwhile, Latinos maintain an even representation in both groups. 

Upon examining the respondents’ religious affiliations within the ODI network (Table 0L), a predominant identification with Christianity is evident, comprising 64.1% of participants. A significant portion of respondents, 15.9%, do not identify with any specific religion. Additionally, 11% chose not to disclose their religious preferences. The remaining 9% is distributed across various religious affiliations, with Islam accounting for 2.8%, Buddhism at 2.1%, spiritual beliefs at 1.4%, Judaism at 2.1%, and Jehovah’s Witnesses at 0.7%. 

The survey findings indicate (Table 0M) that a significant majority (88.1%) have attended college, with 66.1% possessing a bachelor’s degree or higher. Some variances are noted between ODFC CoC and the NW CAN; in the first, 89% have received some college education, and 68.1% have a bachelor’s degree or higher. In the second, 86.2% have received some college education, and 62.1% hold a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Is ODI Sufficiently Incorporating the Voices of People with Lived Experience of Homelessness?

To ascertain if the ODI partner network and Western CT’s homeless emergency response system is sufficiently incorporating the voices of people with lived experience of homelessness, the HIL surveyed respondents about their relationships with the individuals they serve, their access to support, and their expectations upon entering the system. Additionally, the survey delved into their perspectives on integrating individuals with lived experience of homelessness into initiatives aimed at ending homelessness.

SURVEY RESPONSES & ANALYSIS

When questioned, survey respondents overwhelmingly recognize the value of the voices of people with lived experience in creating innovative solutions to mitigate and end homelessness. As we analyze this segment, it’s essential to note that all prevalent data is based on what individuals voluntarily disclosed. In ODFC CoC, a significant majority (90.2%) of frontline staff respondents believe that innovating new homelessness solutions requires input from those experiencing it (Table 1A). They either emphasized that individuals with lived experience possess valuable insights for innovative solutions or advocated for them as partners in ending homelessness. Despite the overwhelming agreement on the importance of lived experience, a small percentage of frontline staff respondents expressed skepticism. Only 4.2% reported that individuals with lived experience “often lack the knowledge to impact or change the system,” and 5.6% believed “it’s the system’s responsibility to innovate without their input.” Among frontline staff respondents in the NW CAN, 100% agreed that to obtain innovative solutions, input from people with lived experience is required or that these individuals should be regarded as partners in the process.

Supervisors in both the ODFC CoC and the NW CAN also expressed a strong focus on incorporating the voice of people with lived experience (Table 1B), with 85.4% of responses supporting this. However, about 12.5% thought these individuals lack the necessary knowledge, and 2.1% believed it’s the system’s responsibility to find solutions without including the voices of those with lived experience.

Notably, Executive Directors in both the ODFC CoC and the NW CAN unanimously support the inclusion of the voices of people with lived experience (Table 1C).

While a significant percentage of Executive Directors (66.7%) reported having at least one person on staff with lived experience, the numbers drop significantly when it comes to including them on the organization’s board of directors (22.2%) or having them lead efforts to incorporate additional people with lived experience (11.1%). (Table 1D).

In the NW CAN, the data reveals that there is a split among Executive Directors in their approaches to incorporating voices of lived experience. While 33.3% have someone with lived experience leading their efforts, another 33.3% face challenges in integrating feedback from individuals with lived experience into their organizational dynamics. This suggests a disparity in the implementation of inclusive practices across organizations. Additionally, only 16.7% indicated having staff members with lived experience, with a similar percentage expressing a desire to include them on the board (Table 1D). These results suggest a need for further exploration into the factors influencing the inclusion and leadership of individuals with lived experience within organizations.

It’s crucial to recognize that inquiring about the inclusion of at least one person with lived experience, as indicated in the survey, represents the minimum requirement, and the aspiration should extend beyond this baseline.

How Are Working Conditions for Frontline Staff Throughout the ODI Partner Network?

The HIL asked survey respondents about the working conditions for frontline staff at partner agencies in the ODI provider network. Questions included information about their wages, what would make their work more effective, any economic hardships they were facing, unmet training needs, and challenges in their daily work. 

SURVEY RESPONSES & ANALYSIS

Delving into the context of staff’s wages throughout the ODI provider network gives crucial insights into the economic dynamics that impact frontline essential workers (Table 2A). The study uses Federal Poverty Levels (FPLs) Federal Register - Annual Update of the HHS Poverty Guidelines (established benchmarks that define the minimum annual income required for individuals or families to meet essential needs, including housing, utilities, clothing, food, and transportation) as guidelines. These guidelines take into account both household size and the state of residence. In 2023, the FPL was $14,580 for individuals, $24,860 for a family of three, and $35,140 for a family of five. At 300% of the FPL as defined by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the corresponding thresholds were $40,770 for an individual, $69,090 for a family of three, and $97,410 for a family of five. Using the 300% FPL as a threshold recognizes that financial strain can persist slightly above the poverty line, ensuring a more inclusive approach to assessing economic well-being and identifying individuals and families needing assistance. 

To provide more CT-specific context, the study also assesses system-wide wages in relation to the United Way’s nationally recognized Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed (ALICE) Report and data, which provides an in-depth and geography-specific analysis of the financial challenges faced by households that may have incomes above the FPL but still struggle to meet basic needs. In Fairfield County (geographically synonymous with ODFC CoC) the 2023 ALICE Report data determines the annual income needed to “Survive” – ALICE Survival Budget – is $35,088 for an individual and $117,396 for a household with two adults, one infant, and one preschooler. In Litchfield County (a great part of the NW CAN,) the 2023 ALICE data determines the annual survival budget to be $31,236 for an individual and $105,756 for a similar family of four household composition. These figures reflect the financial challenges faced by individuals and families who are employed but encounter difficulties in meeting their basic needs due to limited assets and constrained incomes. The ALICE Report provides a nuanced understanding of economic hardships beyond the traditional FPL, contributing valuable regional insights for addressing financial vulnerabilities in communities and in the system wide workforce of the ODI partner network

The Area Median Income (AMI) is a key economic metric used to determine eligibility for various housing and financial assistance programs. It represents the midpoint of household incomes in a specific geographic area, where half the households earn more and half earn less. AMI is calculated annually by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and serves as a reference point for establishing income limits for affordable housing initiatives and other community development efforts. The calculated AMI Limit for Fairfield County (geographically synonymous with ODFC CoC) in 2023 was $142,800 and for Litchfield County (a great part of the NW CAN), $114,700.

When asked to select three options they believe would make their work more effective (Table 2B), over half (60.3% of the ODFC CoC respondents and 56% of the NW CAN respondents) of respondents selected the option “You had better compensation for the work you do.” This aligns with the results of the following question, “which of the following have you experienced over the last 1-2 years?” (Table 2C). 57.7% of respondents working in ODFC CoC and 61.1% of respondents in the NW CAN told us that they were struggling to pay bills and/or have increasing debt. 36.6% in ODFC CoC and 55.6% in NW CAN reported “no negative impacts” or being able to “weather it ok.” Frontline staff also reported having to take on an additional job (46.5% in ODFC CoC, 16.7% in NW CAN), having to seek food assistance (16.9% in ODFC CoC, 22.2% in NW CAN), or sometimes going hungry or without basic necessities to make ends meet (15.5% in ODFC CoC, 22.2% in NW CAN).

While no staff reported losing their housing or seeking shelter services in the NW CAN, 27.8% reported having been at risk of losing their housing. Since this is self-reported data, it is important to remember these results are what people were comfortable with disclosing, even in an anonymous survey. This could indicate that actual figures for staff housing insecurity are much higher.

Most frontline staff respondents (64.7%) reported having an annual household income of less than $75,000.00 a year (Table 2D). 8.2% of respondents reported a household income at or below the ALICE Report’s 2023 Household Survival budget for a single individual. 75.7% of ODFC CoC respondents had an income below the Area Median Income for Fairfield County and the ALICE Report 2023 Household Survival budget for a four-person household. In the NW CAN, no staff members reported an income above the ALICE report’s 2023 survival budget for a four-person household in Litchfield County. Only 11.2% of respondents reported an income above the Area Median Income for Litchfield County. 5.6% of respondents live below the federal poverty level for a single individual.

While wages are important, staff also pointed to other support and resources they needed to do their job. 43.8% of the ODI network respondents said that they thought their work would be more effective if they had proper training on services and procedures, and 28.8% said they would be more effective with proper training on de-escalating and managing crisis situations. 

We compared respondents’ feelings about the onboarding training offered compared to ongoing training in order to understand why respondents feel that proper training would make their work more effective (Tables 2E and 2G). While most respondents reported that both the onboarding and ongoing training was “good,” 14.6% reported that their onboarding training was lacking and left them feeling unprepared. Even more concerning, 11.0% reported that they had no onboarding training before beginning their work. Comparatively, only 6.1% reported that the ongoing training was lacking. 

Supervisors were even more likely to have received no onboarding training - 24.4% reported that they were not given any training, and 51.1% said that they were given some training but mostly learned on the job (Table 2F). This is despite most supervisors (46.5%) moving into their position from a frontline staff position at their current organization - i.e., moving into a supervisory role without prior supervisory experience (Table 2H). 

When asked how often respondents felt overwhelmed at work in the last week, just under a quarter of respondents did not feel overwhelmed at all (Table 2I). 23.5% said they “rarely” felt overwhelmed, and another 29.4% said they felt overwhelmed on a few occasions. About 22.3% were overwhelmed “almost daily” or “every day.” Approximately 3% chose not to answer. 

Frontline staff perception of the client’s circumstances reveal a myriad of challenges that likely increase demand and intensity of work for staff (Table 2J and 2K). Frontline staff and supervisors reported a perceived increase in clients with mental health needs and problematic substance use. 70% of staff in both regions reported clients with mental health needs increasing in severity. 64.7% of respondents in the Northwest CAN and 51.8% of respondents in the ODFC CoC reported that substance use was increasing in severity. 61.5% of Executive Directors state that it’s a daily occurrence for their organizations to provide services to people whose needs exceed what the system can offer, and 46.2% say it’s a daily occurrence for their organizations to engage with people who need more resources than the CAN is able to provide. It is important to note that these staff, supervisor, and ED reports are not representative of which of these experiences clients are reporting.

Exacerbating these challenges is the housing affordability crisis. Frontline staff, supervisors, and Executive Directors alike indicated that the work of supporting and successfully housing clients is getting more difficult (Tables 2L and 2M). 84% of frontline staff in the ODFC CoC and 82.4% of frontline staff in the NW CAN have seen a lack of affordable housing grow in number and 77% in both regions have seen it grow in severity. 47.1% of frontline staff and 68.6% of supervisors reported that finding affordable housing that accepts subsidies / housing vouchers was difficult, and 17.1% of frontline staff said it was impossible to find. Unsubsidized but affordable housing, also known as Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing or NOAH, was ranked as the most challenging to find by frontline staff and supervisors: 38% of frontline staff and 60% of supervisors reported that finding NOAH was difficult, and 36.6% of frontline staff and 20% of supervisors said NOAH was impossible to find. Finally, 42.9% of frontline staff and 62.9% of supervisors reported that finding subsidized housing was difficult, and 28.6% of staff and 5.7% of supervisors said subsidized housing was impossible to find. Clients who are housed are also not remaining housed; supervisors indicated that they are seeing frontline staff interact with individuals who re-enter the system after being housed frequently (25.7%) or very frequently (25.7%) (Table 2N).

Table 2L Can you rate the ease of finding the following housing types for the people you serve? (Staff responses)

Table 2M Can you rate the ease of finding the following housing types for the people you serve? (Supervisors’ responses)

* Properties that are made available to lower-income households at less than market value.
** Housing that is owned and/or managed by the government to provide housing to low-income families.

The HIL looked to see if these concerns were impacting job satisfaction across the ODI network (Table 2O). The majority of respondents (37%) believe the average job satisfaction in the ODFC CoC is moderate, with “some staff feeling satisfied and others less so.” However, 27.1% believe it is “low” or “very low,” compared to only 12% who think it is “good” or “high.”

Nevertheless, when asked about their own job performance (not satisfaction), frontline staff were very confident (Table 2P). 25.9% believe they are doing an “excellent” job and 51.9% believe they are doing a good job. The majority of frontline staff are also satisfied with their supervisors; 50.6% said that supervisors “will support staff when asked” and 37% said supervisors “are attentive to staff’s needs and step in when necessary” (Table 2Q). However, a minority of frontline staff (9.9%) did respond that supervisors “are frequently too busy to support staff.” 

With these concerns about salary, challenging client situations, and unpreparedness, it is not surprising that 29.1% of supervisors reported a high or very high perceived turnover rate in their organization and another 27.1% reported a moderate turnover rate (Table 2R).

Is ODI Achieving Equity Throughout Its Partner Network?

The HIL asked respondents about their opinions on how race interacts with the work they do in ending homelessness, how effective their organizations’ DEIB efforts are, and examined their reported income from a gender and racial lens.

SURVEY RESPONSES & ANALYSIS

When assessing the frontline staff’s awareness of racial disparities in opportunities within the Western CT homeless response systems, the results reveal a mixed outlook (Table 3A). Approximately 38.1% of frontline staff members believe race does impact access to opportunities in their system. They cite reasons such as negative institutional systems, personal observations, racial bias, prioritization, broad systemic oppression, and a belief that race can indeed play a significant role in accessing services and resources. 31% of frontline staff members do not perceive racial disparities as a significant factor affecting opportunities within the homeless system. Some reasons cited by respondents include the belief that race is a non-issue, a focus on individual determination, a lack of personal experience in witnessing these disparities, or a more optimistic view that individuals can overcome such barriers. Finally, 31% of frontline staff members remain uncertain about how racial identity impacts access to opportunity within the homeless response system in Connecticut.

When the racial and ethnic identity of the frontline staff respondents is considered, we found relative evenness in their responses (Table 3B). 23.1% of Black respondents think race might play a role, 34.6% believe it does not, and 38.5% believe it does. Hispanic respondents were evenly split (33.3% each) among the three responses. White respondents had the lowest share of respondents who do not believe that race plays a role (20%), with 40% believing it does play a role and 40% unsure. 66.7% of respondents who do not identify as solely Black, Latino, or White do not believe race plays a role, and 33.3% believe it does.

When asked why they selected the response they chose, the frontline staff offered comments that presented a much more nuanced picture of their understanding of race and the homeless response system. Most frontline staff who selected “no” seemed to be operating based on an interpersonal or individual understanding of racism - i.e., racism that occurs between individuals, or “the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate racism.” (Wijeysinghe, Griffin, & Love, 1997). Many respondents who selected “no” noted that they have never seen race impact any of their own clients, or they pointed out that discrimination in these programs “can lead to legal action.” Some said that “color or race” doesn’t matter as much as personality or that “poverty, substance addiction, low economic status, and mental illness can affect anyone.”

Those who responded “yes,” however, discussed the impacts of race on a systemic level, as “the complex interactions of large-scale societal systems, practices, ideologies, and programs that produce and perpetuate inequities for racial minorities.” (Gee & Ford, 2011) https://fitchburgstate.libguides.com/c.php?g=1046516&p=7602969. They mentioned “negative institutional systems” or a sense that white clients can access services “a little more smoothly.”

An individual-focused understanding of the impacts of racism in the network was also present when frontline staff were asked what they saw as the biggest issues related to racial equity (Table 3C). 72% of frontline staff selected mental health and financial stability. 69% selected criminal background. Tied for third place were implicit bias and understaffed agencies lacking representation of the homeless population, with 46.6% of respondents selecting these options.

This survey also assessed how the network’s workforce feels about their organization’s efforts to advance Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) (Tables 3D, 3E, and 3F). Frontline staff, supervisors, and Executive Directors were asked to rank their organization’s efforts from one to five, with one being poor and 5 being outstanding, across five areas: 

• Active engagement to achieve awareness of the organization’s diversity and inclusion policies (average rating 3.8)
• Training on unconscious bias or diversity and inclusion (average rating 3.5)
• Active search to value diverse perspectives during decision-making (average rating 3.5)
• Building employee resource groups or affinity groups that support underrated communities (average rating 3.4)
• Inclusive practices to accommodate diverse needs (e.g., religious observances, parental leave) (average rating 3.6)
• Fair and equitable treatment, access, and opportunity (average rating 3.7)
• The overall satisfaction average across all five categories was a rating of 3.6

When examining income in the ODI partner network, we see inequities across racial and gender lines (Tables 3G, 3H, 3I, and 3J). Black employees (both frontline staff and supervisors) comprised 29% of the respondents surveyed, but only 20% of Black employees earn more than $100,000 annually. They were also overrepresented in the bottom pay range, with 35% of Black employees making less than $50,000 annually. However, White employees made up 31% of respondents, but 36% of White employees made more than $100,000 annually. Interestingly, Hispanic/Latino respondents represented 21% of survey respondents and were overrepresented in both the top and bottom income brackets, with 32% of Latino respondents earning more than $100,000 and 29% earning less than $50,000 a year.

Even starker disparity was seen across gender for supervisors and frontline staff (Tables 3K, 3L, 3M, and 3N). Percentages do not add to 100% to maintain anonymity for respondents who did not choose to identify as “man” or “woman.” Men made up 27% of the respondents, but 39% of male respondents made more than $100,000 a year. Women comprised 68% of respondents, but only 57% of female employees earned more than $100,000 annually. Women are exactly proportional when looking at employees making less than $50,000 (68%), but men are slightly overrepresented in this category, with 29% making less than $50,000.

The Way Forward: HIL Recommendations for Recalibration and System Improvement

The ODI partner network throughout Western CT, has identified shared goals for the future including ending homelessness, incorporating voices of people with lived expertise, and creating more racially equitable homeless response systems in both the ODFC CoC and the NW CAN. This report is a significant first step in better understanding how to reach those goals. 

ODI strives to be a network that includes people currently experiencing homelessness in the work of ending homelessness. But we see that many organizations are struggling to bring people with lived experience onto their staff and boards.

ODI strives to be a network where staff are able to live and work securely in the communities they serve without fearing that they will also need to access the services they provide. But we can see that most staff are living paycheck to paycheck, one crisis away from financial peril. 

ODI strives to be a network where new staff feel prepared to serve clients no matter their circumstances. But we can see that most staff feel their onboarding training left them with questions about how to do their job in the face of client circumstances that are growing more frequent and challenging. 

ODI strives to be a network that works to end systemic racism that impacts our clients, our staff, and our communities. But we see division and resistance to understanding the impact race plays in our clients’ lives, and inequality in pay across gender and race lines. 

These challenges, while complex, are not insurmountable. The Housing Innovation Lab proposes the following preliminary action steps for improvement at both the organizational and systems levels:

Next Steps

The work that the ODI partner network does in Western CT each and every day has never been more vital as the region, the state and the nation confront an increasing crisis of homelessness. We must take steps to ensure our work is able to sustainably meet those challenges and continue to serve the most vulnerable members of our community. 

Informed by the data and findings outlined in this report, ODI will work over the coming months to identify and align system resources and supports to operationalize the report recommendations. The Housing Collective will dedicate HIL resources in the years ahead to measure and track long-term progress on collective goals throughout Western CT’s homeless response systems and provide tools, training, and support to the ODI partner network that anchor equity in every aspect of the systems work.