Helping Design More Equitable and Impactful Housing Systems and Solutions

Highlights

Can we help communities design an optimal system to end homelessness?
We help communities design solutions to address housing and community development challenges.
With hundreds of thousands of hours of TA provided, Abt has supported evolving community needs, from COVID-19 pandemic preparedness to prioritizing partnering with people with lived experience.

The Challenge

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has many housing and community development programs. HUD created the Community Compass program to enable HUD grantees and public housing agencies, and tribes to receive technical assistance (TA) to navigate implementation challenges. Since 2004, Abt has provided support to HUD grantees in programs administered by the offices of Community Planning and Development, Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, Housing, and Public and Indian Housing.

The Approach

Abt helps local communities and jurisdictions design and implement their community development and homelessness strategies, and we provide on-site technical support and capacity building. With deep federal, state and local housing policy subject matter expertise, as well as analysis and TA experience, Abt supports communities on a variety of topics. These include affordable housing, community development, homelessness, disaster recovery, climate resiliency, social determinants of health, fair housing, racial equity and the engagement of people with lived experience, and the federal community development programs, like Community Development Block Grant, HOME Investment Program, HOME-American Rescue Plan, Emergency Solutions Grant, and the Continuum of Care program.

Our approach to delivering TA is centered in equity, and the Abt team engages with a variety of stakeholders, including people with lived experience of homelessness, to identify needs and provide support.

Our collection of data for the Annual Homeless Assessment Report gives communities and Congress needed information to design effective programs and services. We also created online tools to help grantees, program managers, and administrators understand program fundamentals and technical requirements to enhance activities across thousands of local jurisdictions.

The Results

For almost two decades, Abt and our partners have provided nearly 500,000 hours of TA for more than 600 programs and jurisdictions under the Community Compass Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Program. Abt’s TA has helped to equip communities with the knowledge, skills, tools, capacity, and systems to successfully implement HUD programs and policies, and supported communities as they work to establish sustainable programs for the long term.

Related News and Publications: