Your Way Home - Kyle Tribble

In January 2014, Your Way Home Montgomery County was established as the county’s unified and coordinated housing crisis response system for families and individuals experiencing homelessness or at imminent risk of homelessness.

 

THE VISION OF THE YOUR WAY HOME PROGRAM

is to make the experience of homelessness in Montgomery County rare, brief and non-recurring.  The common agenda among Your Way Home partners is to improve the housing stability, economic security and health of families and individuals experiencing or at imminent risk of homelessness.  In 2014 Your Way Home established a bold goal of reducing homelessness by 50% over five years.   

Since its inception in January 2014, Your Way Home has reduced homelessness in Montgomery County by 37%, as measured by the annual Point-In-Time count, which decreased from 464 in 2013 to 292 in 2018.  

THE MAJOR COMPONENTS OF YOUR WAY HOME

  • A Coordinated Entry System that uses both the VI-SPDAT and SPDAT assessment tools to prioritize people for housing and services based on vulnerability and diverts people from entering shelter unless absolutely necessary

  • A common agenda, a core set of guiding principles and a shared catalogue of metrics

  • A robust and multidisciplinary Street Outreach team that can be deployed anywhere in the county 24/7

  • Housing-Focused Emergency Shelter services, including centralized shelter bed management

  • Housing Resource Centers serve as a central location for coordinated response to housing crises for the most vulnerable families and individuals who are experiencing homelessness by providing Rapid Rehousing.

  • Housing Counseling and/or Legal services to divert people from entering shelter or becoming street homeless

  • Transitional Housing for select populations, including transitional age youth, people fleeing abuse and violence at home, and people in early stages of substance abuse recovery, among others

  • Permanent Supportive Housing for people with significant barriers to permanent housing stability

  • Connections to mainstream and community services, including child care, food security, physical, mental and behavioral health, employment and job training, public benefits access and veterans’ services, among others

  • A broad cross-sector partnership that leverages and aligns federal, state, county and private funding sources to achieve greater impact.

    Your Way Home is a public-private partnership that engages nonprofits, government, philanthropy, residents, businesses, and other community partners to meet its vision of making homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring.
     

    PARTNERSHIP STRUCTURE

  • The Your Way Home Advisory Council sets the overall strategic direction for the initiative. The twenty-five members of the Advisory Council are appointed by the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, and represent a broad set of industries and sectors that are invested in ending homelessness in the county. For more on the Advisory Council, please click here.
  • The PA-504 Continuum of Care Governance Team is designed to promote community wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness.  The thirteen Continuum of Care Governance Team members are elected by the Your Way Home community annually. For more on the Continuum of Care, please click here.
  • The lead public agency of Your Way Home is the Montgomery County Office of Housing and Community Development. This office provides the backbone support to Your Way Home, including policy and program coordination and oversight, data analysis, communications and marketing, grants management, and partnership development.
  • The lead private agency and fiscal sponsor of Your Way Home is the Montgomery County Foundation, Inc. The Montgomery County Foundation, Inc. holds the Your Way Home Initiative Fund, and its President serves as the Your Way Home Advisory Council Chair.  For more information about this partnership, please click here.
  • Your Way Home’s Action Teams provide policy-specific guidance, recommendations, and input on various topics. Action Teams may be ad-hoc to address a specific but time-limited issue, or recurring. Participation on an Action Teams is available to any member of our Your Way Home community, including nonprofit partners, government, philanthropy, business, and residents. The recurring Action Teams are - Your Way Home Street Homeless By-Name List Action Team and Permanent Supportive Housing Action Team

  • If  you or your organization are interested in joining our partnership, please visit the Contact Us page.