Engaging experienced adults to end homelessness
Grand Rapids Community Foundation’s Encore initiative prepares the community for the challenges and opportunities presented by the aging of America’s biggest generation. Through the Community Experience Partnership, and in collaboration with the Grand Rapids Area Coalition to End Homelessness, the Community Foundation is working to engage experienced adults in addressing barriers to housing security.
- Unmet need: more
than 6,000 homeless people
- Untapped resource: a fast-growing
population of experienced adults seeking to make a difference in the community
- Solution: a project aimed at drawing on the talents of experienced adults to help end homelessness
The project builds on two community-wide planning initiatives:
- Creating Community for a Lifetime developed a vision and roadmap for creating an “elder-friendly community.”
- The Vision to End Homelessness identified strategies for preventing and ending homelessness.
In addition to playing a key role in each of these planning initiatives, the Community Foundation has also made significant investments in each area over the past decade: more than $3.2 million in matters related to homelessness and more than $2.2 million in aging issues. The Community Experience Partnership furthers the Community Foundation’s work in social engagement, one of its six priority areas, while also drawing on its extensive experience in convening, leading, and participating in community planning initiatives.
A critical component of this approach is a project team with 24 members from a variety of community organizations, including nonprofits, higher education institutions, and government; more than half of the participants are themselves experienced adults. In 2008, the team engaged in a fast-track learning process as the basis for developing a sustainable plan for involving experienced adults in impacting homelessness in Kent County.
