How This Community Ended Homelessness

In 2017, Rockford, IL, became the first community in the country to end both veteran and chronic homelessness.
By changing the way they worked, they were able to more effectively house the people experiencing homelessness in their community. One crucial shift for Rockford was creating a by-name list of everyone experiencing homelessness there. The list gave them a comprehensive and current picture of homelessness in Rockford and provided more reliable data than the annual homelessness census communities had been relying on.
“The by-name list for me started out as a list. But it became a list of people,” said Jennifer Jaeger, Community Services Director, City of Rockford. “It became incredibly personal to get them housed and to end homelessness.”
Rockford is part of the Built for Zero initiative, which is a network of communities across the country working to ending veteran and chronic homelessness. We’re grateful to our partner Quicken Loans who has joined forces with Community Solutions to help end veteran homelessness.

[@lindsayfawn84]

This is amazing. This really makes me want to get our butts in gear. My city of Moncton only has an estimated 70,000 people. It should not be hard to end chronic homelessness. Great work Rockford!!!!!

[@isleblue65]

You had no drug addicted or mentally ill homeless? These are the main causes of homelessness. How did this community address these problems?