Homelessness continues to be an issue confronting urban communities, seeking practical and compassionate solutions. One of the strategies now moving from theory to implementation includes Housing Navigations Centers. The model presents a comprehensive approach, moving beyond the usual services provided by emergency shelters to finding permanent housing and self-sufficiency.
A Housing Navigation Center program provides intensive, coordinated services to homeless adults. Unlike traditional shelters, however, this model is a structured program, offering a period of up to six months during which each individual has the opportunity to be engaged in intensive housing case management. Under this arrangement, case managers undertake individualized support, which addresses the unique challenges about each one’s situation.
Navigation Centers are service-rich. They include health and wellness offerings, employment assistance, substance abuse services, and counseling. This kind of approach sees homelessness as the outcome of complex, interrelated problems that need comprehensive addressing. By dealing with these different aspects at the same time, Navigation Centers greatly increase the chances for a successful transition to permanent supportive housing.
Central to the Navigation Center model is the role of the Housing Navigators. This class of professionals offers intensive case management in close cooperation with the participants — leading them toward reunification into their stable income and permanent housing. Such an approach is collaborative and empowers participants to become active agents in their journey to stable housing. Housing Navigators are advocates, liaisons with landlords in assisting with housing search, and have the corresponding expertise in eliminating barriers to securing housing.
This support does not stop once housing is secured. Follow-up services are dedicated to helping stabilize participants in their new homes and last for nine months. Indeed, it is necessary to enable long-term success and not resume homelessness. Typically, vigorous, ongoing services are provided by experienced non-profit service providers who make referrals to appropriate service agencies and oversee participant care.
The Navigation Centers offer a feel of safety, cleanliness, calmness, and flexibility that represent the setting every individual should be under to rebuild their life settings. They have basic amenities; the added ones include sanitation and food. However, the most importantly, that the centers work 24 hours, are staffed-to-operation, and have comprehensive security to give stability and safety to all participants.
The obvious, overwhelming benefits of Navigation Centers notwithstanding, often the establishment of centers is met with palpable concerns from local communities. However, upon closer examination, many of them are among the most loudly voiced concerns available, and few appear to be well-founded officially. General residents in areas with Navigation Centers in place report that the facilities produce no adverse spillover effects on the immediate surrounding community. Many describe a reduction of homeless visibility and, for the first time, overall enhancements to the sense of area safety. The council must not forget that if communities can live with various urban risks such as cities crossing over earthquake fault lines, road noise, landslide risks, gas pipelines, and traffic, all safely, certainly a Navigation Center is no different in existing proximity. Further, actively worked-upon safety concerns are often vouched for by law enforcement personnel, including local police chiefs, and are informed because of the responsibility exercised within such centers.
