Change Well Project

🏡 ✨Ready to explore the power of low-barrier housing?

Introducing the Homecoming Toolkit! (Download here ⬇️) www.changewellproject.com/homecoming-toolkit

✨ What is it? ➡️ Practical guidance for creating low-barrier, person-centered housing programs—to improve access, stability, and well-being for people experiencing homelessness, including those who use substances.

✨ Why is it needed? ➡️ Traditional housing models often require sobriety or treatment—creating barriers for those most in need. Low-barrier housing provides access without requirements, so that people feel respected, supported, and empowered.

✨ Who is the toolkit for? ➡️ Housing providers and frontline staff like case managers interested in trauma-informed strategies like harm reduction. But it’s also a great resource for funders and policymakers, community advocates, property managers and landlords, and anyone else interested in housing solutions that work for everyone.

You can access the full toolkit here!
https://www.changewellproject.com/homecoming-toolkit


The Homecoming Toolkit was developed in partnership with the L.A. County Health Services Harm Reduction Division. It is informed by extensive input from participants, practitioners, leaders, advocates, and policy experts working at the intersection of person-centered support services, harm reduction and housing.

✨Great news from LA!✨ A unified, countywide response to homelessness

Our partners at the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative - the Los Angeles County Department of Homeless Services and Housing (HSH) - now have an approved $843 million spending plan centering proven strategies in reducing homelessness -- with a focus on serving disproportionately impacted populations: families, youth, and survivors of domestic violence.

With its mission to lead a unified countywide response to homelessness, connecting housing, health, and social services, HSH works with diverse partners to deliver high-impact programs and services to prevent and end homelessness.

This spending plan will fuel powerful investments in both interim and permanent housing, as well as:

✨65 outreach teams to deploy specialized outreach and engagement countywide
✨3,671 Time-Limited Subsidies to quickly provide housing support to people who have recently fallen into homelessness
✨3,675 locally-funded rental subsidies to support people in permanent supportive housing
✨Wraparound case management services for 24,250 people living in permanent housing to support them in remaining stably housed
✨6,185 interim housing beds to bring people off the streets and safely indoors as quickly as possible
✨ Significant homelessness prevention support for families, youth, and veterans
And so much more

We're incredibly proud to stand with HSH -- and as Director Sarah Mahin has shared, "work together toward an LA County where everyone has a place to call home.”

Learn more about this exciting work here!
https://homeless.lacounty.gov/news/la-county-aims-to-keep-people-sheltered-and-housed-by-focusing-on-proven-programs/

We believe ALL community members should have access to the services they need to thrive—from housing and disability benefits to mental health services and a universal basic income.

Food assistance benefits through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or CalFresh, are a crucial part of that web of support.

While the government shutdown is threatening food assistance benefits in the short-term—there are more threats looming. Over the next decade, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will cut $186 billion from SNAP - making nutrition assistance more challenging to get.

This will not only leave millions to face food insecurity — it will increase poverty and the risk of housing insecurity and homelessness across the country.

For more on SNAP's benefits for families and our economy, check out this resource from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/the-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap