Network level Community Solutions’ Built for Zero Movement brings together all of the communities working towards making homelessness rare and brief.Action level Community Solutions supports 142 US and 103 international place-based community teams working to make homelessness rare and brief in their localities.Supporting level Community Solutions’ team of employees and strategic partners support communities and the movement to carry out its work. Vision: Community Solutions envisions a more equitable society where homelessness is never inevitable, inescapable or a way of life. Method: To realize that vision, communities within the Built for Zero movement follow a shared methodology to work towards ending homelessness in their place-based communities. This method includes: 1) bringing together all stakeholders working to solve homelessness in a community; 2) establishing a shared goal (homelessness is rare and brief) and a shared measurement system; 3) collecting and using real-time, by-name data to drive decision-making and assure equity; 4) providing a menu of tools and strategies tested within the network; and 5) securing flexible resources. Principles: The Community Solutions methodology requires a set of “mindset shifts”, starting with the idea itself that homelessness is an intractable problem. Before communities can begin to solve homelessness, they must commit to measurably ending homelessness for entire populations. Communities must also make the shift from addressing homelessness through fragmented services to a system of shared goals and accountability. This mindset shift involves moving from a mentality of “my client” to “our clients”. Finally, to solve homelessness, communities must shift to using comprehensive, real-time, by-name data that enables a complete and dynamic view of homelessness, revealing inflow and outflow patterns and opportunities for improvement to existing practices for preventing and quickly resolving homelessness. Practices: Each community establishes a real-time, by- name list of all people experiencing homelessness to drive their work together. This by-name list – updated monthly, at a minimum – enables communities to quickly match housing solutions with individual needs and identify opportunities for making the housing system itself perform more effectively. Communities also commit to meeting and reviewing data on a weekly basis to examine (as a team) ways to connect people to stable housing. Often, communities will set initial goals to work together to make homelessness rare and brief for specific target populations (veteran, chronic, family, youth, all singles). By making progress with specific populations, communities can feel a sense of accomplishment on the path to solving homelessness and making homelessness rare and brief for everyone.Collective architecture The collective pathway Aspen Cierra Photography Brendan McGowan Photography The Future is Collective: Case Studies of Collective Social Innovation 16

The Future is Collective Case Studies of Collective Social Innovation 2025