The community vision outlined in the Vision Statement section of the Roadmap was developed through a deep level of community engagement and can serve as the foundational starting point for building a transformed system across the CoC and HRD. The vision statement can help to align the goals and strategies being implemented across Detroit and help to focus the work moving forward. The Continuum of Care and HRD should consider formally adopting the vision statement as the first step of building a system together that is led by the community and those most impacted by homelessness.
After adopting the vision for the system, the CoC and HRD, in direct partnership with the Detroit Advisors, should convene a community co-design process to engage the community in creating the governance and goals of the system being built across the CoC and HRD. The co-design process can also be the space to review the actions and strategies of the Roadmap and determine ways to take short- and long-term action by aligning the current work of the CoC and HRD and prioritizing any new workstreams needed.
Structural considerations for the co-design process
The CoC and HRD, in partnership with the Detroit Advisors, should consider the following when moving to a co-design process with the community:
- Stakeholder groups: It will be critical to include people with lived expertise, leadership and direct staff of homeless providers agencies, affordable housing and homeownership stakeholders, system partners (workforce, health/mental health, education, and legal systems), system planners, advocates, and community-based organizations
- Leadership body: Leaders with decision making power from the City (HRD), the Continuum of Care (including the board, member organizations, and HAND), and elected officials, with strong representation of people with lived expertise must be included in a leadership body during the co-design process; this is critical to ensure that the work of the co-design process can be enacted and implemented
- Staffing : The co-design process should have a minimum of 0.5 FTE dedicated staff members to help convene, organize, and synthesize the work; it is critical that this staff person work across the CoC and HRD and in direct partnership with the Detroit Advisors. Dedicated staffing for ongoing support of the Detroit Advisors should be separate from this position and built into the ongoing work of the CoC beyond the design phase of this project.
- Funding: The CoC and HRD will need to determine what funding can be made available for staffing the co-design, for consulting service needs, and for compensating people with lived experience who are not otherwise being paid for their participation from their current employment
- Timing: Typical co-design processes take 12-18 months; the community will need to determine which actions in the Roadmap may take the full 12-18 months to design, such as designing a system across the CoC and HRD, and which may be able to design and begin implementing in a shorter period of time, such as increasing access and safety for the TGNC community