The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative (MDHI) is the continuum of care (COC) designated by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to coordinate the homelessness response across the broader Denver, Colorado region. MDHI joined the Community Solutions Built for Zero movement in 2015. MDHI is coordinating a regional system of government agencies, elected officials, nonprofit leaders and people with lived experience of homelessness to solve homelessness across seven counties, 40 municipalities and a population of 3.2 million. Since Metro Denver is so large and diverse, MDHI divided their approach into nine subregions. Each subregion has its own structure, consisting of an executive team of elected officials that meets regularly, a homeless coordination team of nonprofit and agency leaders, and case conferencing teams of case managers that discuss individuals experiencing homelessness to coordinate support. In each subregion, MDHI convenes key partners, builds buy-in, monitors data quality and consistency, provides coaching and technical assistance, and coordinates funding. So far, six out of nine subregions have achieved quality by- name data for veteran homelessness, which has contributed to a better understanding of the barriers to ending veteran homelessness. Using this data, regions have been able to better tailor their services – for example, one important discovery is that more than half of veterans experiencing homelessness in the subregions are over the age of 60, often requiring healthcare support and assisted living. By mining the data for important information, MDHI and its partners have been able to design better systems to support veterans. Local leaders have also taken the learning from veteran homelessness and are applying them across their systems. In 2024, the City and County of Denver launched the All In Mile High initiative, based on Built for Zero practices, and are working to make unsheltered homelessness in the city rare and brief. Through the application of this framework, this team has driven down the number of veterans experiencing homelessness to near zero and built a system that can identify and connect a veteran to shelter or housing in a single day. This approach is working – Metro Denver partners have helped more than 1,874 veteran households move into housing since 2020, which equates to a reduction in veteran homelessness by 30% over the past four years. Additionally, through the leadership of the State of Colorado Department of Local Affairs, Division of Housing, Office of Homeless Initiatives, the Built for Zero framework has spread to communities across the state, which has further increased coordination and alignment in the Metro Denver region. Since 2019, one Colorado community, Fremont County, achieved functional zero for veteran homelessness and five others outside of Metro Denver have met the quality data milestone.5CASE STORY Metro Denver Homeless Initiative 5. Adapted from Gonzalez, B. (2024). Metro Denver Archives Quality Data in Five Out of Nine Subregions. Community Solutions. https://community.solutions/case-studies/metro-denver-achieves-quality-data-in-five-out-of-nine-subregions/. James Chance, Chance Multimedia The Future is Collective: Case Studies of Collective Social Innovation 20

The Future is Collective Case Studies of Collective Social Innovation 2025