And so this graphic walks you through what we call the coordinated entry system.

But that that is again just how folks experiencing homelessness access the system are assessed using locally what we call the universal housing assessment, or then prioritized and then referred to appropriate housing interventions.

We've made huge improvements to this coordinated entry system over the past three years, improving our assessment process and ensuring what we call the by name list, which is uh real-time registry of everyone in our community who has been assessed, but making sure that it's actually representative of the folks who are experiencing homelessness in our community.

Um this is how the system is designed to work, but we understand that it's um not flawless.

So people fall off at every stage of this system, unfortunately.

And there are interim supports along the way, such as um shelters and mental health and addiction supports, uh, but those resources have very limited capacity in our community, so they're not able to fully support the needs of our system.

Uh next slide.

So I won't share all of the statistics.

We did recently publish a state of homelessness report.

It can be found on our website, and then Brooke has actually some copies of it back there for for you council folks.

But um, it kind of dives in deep dives into the the data.

But I do want to highlight a couple of statistics.

So there are over a thousand people experiencing homelessness in our 11 county region on any given night.

Um a two-bedroom unit in uh at fair market rent in the Chattanooga area requires a job paying $27.42 an hour.

Um, and then 76% of local jobs pay an average wage that is less than that.

Um, so it would require at least three full-time minimum wage jobs to be to not be rent burdened in our community.

And 72% of households experiencing homelessness on our by name list report having some kind of disabling condition.

Um, and uh disability benefits are often falling hundreds of dollars short of monthly rent payment amounts.

So the bottom line is that homelessness is driven by housing costs, low wages, and health, not individual failures.

Um, homelessness is not just impacting those folks experiencing it, but it has real consequences for workforce participation, the local economy, and our public systems.

Uh next slide.

Um, so there are three main housing intervention intervention types in our community.

Um, those are emergency shelter, which is intended to serve individuals and families for short periods of time while they're getting connected to long-term support.

Um, our community currently has a gap of 800 emergency shelter beds to meet the need of those folks experiencing homelessness.

Um, rapid rehousing programs intend to serve individuals and families who need some short-term rental assistance and sometimes case management support.

Um, we currently see a gap of about a hundred beds in rapid rehousing programs, and then permanent supportive housing, which is our the um intervention that that serves our most vulnerable population.

So it's the long-term support with the intensive case management.

And we currently have a gap of about 300 beds in our permanent supportive housing programs.

Um next slide.

So this graphic demonstrates the system as it's intended to work.

As you can see there between uh where individuals are waiting for housing and the limited housing units, we see a bottleneck.

Um, and this is just causing folks to stay on this limited available housing is causing folks to stay on that by name list uh much longer than um than a lot of them need to, which is ultimately um making their situation worse.

We know um the the length of time that somebody experiences homelessness is is directly related with uh to to what interventions they're gonna need to be able to ultimately stably house them.

Um next slide.

So this is the same um same graphic, but it shows how prevention and diversion projects positively benefit our system.

So um prevention and diversion projects are um ultimately uh set up to either prevent someone's homelessness or rapidly resolve homelessness when somebody enters into homelessness.

So we do have prevention programs that are able to assist households before they enter homelessness, providing financial assistance, case management, and legal assistance where appropriate to ensure that folks stay in their housing.

Umersion programs provide housing navigation and flexible funding to quickly resolve homelessness and move them back to stability before they they spend too much time experiencing homelessness.

So both prevention and diversion funds and programs address the issue of homelessness upstream, serving folks before they get to a place where stable housing is more difficult to maintain.

And as our system continues to work to house the most vulnerable prevention and diversion funds are and will continue to be all the more important to invest in.

Uh next slide.

So though we've worked really hard to improve our system, and we do have one of the most efficient systems in the country.

Uh the system still feels a lot of pressure, and unfortunately, it's not able to serve every household experiencing homelessness in a timely manner.

So the system is very constrained.

Um, we do have a limited housing inventory in all of our program types.

Um, there is an insufficient number of truly affordable housing units for no to low-income households, and there's a major gap in bed numbers for emergency shelter and medical respite beds.

Um, along with that, the federal landscape is shifting greatly right now.

So federal funding priorities are changing and are no longer going to be designed to serve the most vulnerable folks.

Um, with new federal funding guidelines, programs will have to shift focus from housing to um increasing employment, income pathways, and um uh extra emphasis on treatment and recovery programs.

And while housing first has been an evidence-based solution to homelessness, federally funded programs will no longer operate under the housing first model.

So, what does this mean for our community?

Um, loss or changes to federal funding will devastate our permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing programs, as well as our coordinated entry and homeless management information system.

All things that are proven to be effective for ending homelessness in our community.

Um we must invest more heavily in diversion and prevention efforts to reduce inflow into our homelessness system.

Um flexible funding options are imperative for meeting the needs of every household experiencing homelessness and the current structure of our continuum of care with the homeless coalition serving as the backbone agency is essential for moving people experiencing homelessness into stable housing.

So, in a constrained and evolving federal environment, local coordination and flexible investment are more critical than ever.

Next slide.

So through our strategic partnership with the City of Chattanooga, the homeless coalition has been able to expand our reach as the lead agency, moving away from just our HUD-designated roles.

Um, so we've done that through data and operational support.

We've really been able to increase our capacity to build a system that works more efficiently and really take uh a deeper dive into uh the data that we're seeing in our community and looking at trends to um to address homelessness in an appropriate way for our community.