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In 2003, the DuPage Homeless Continuum completed
a 10-year plan to end homelessness. One of the goals of that plan
focuses on homeless prevention and is stated as follows:
"The DuPage County Homeless Continuum will
have in place an Emergency Prevention system that assists the
maximum number of persons possible and operates efficiently. The
focus will be on obtaining more funds from private sources, supporting
the staff costs for these programs, maximizing the use of public
funding to help more persons, streamlining procedures, identifying
means for increasing timely access to prevention resources, identifying
requirements that are a barrier for obtaining help now, and using
other mainstream programs as a part of an overall homeless prevention
effort."
The Homeless Prevention Providers Working Group
has identified the following goals for the DuPage Homeless Prevention
system.
- To assure the best distribution to,
and equal access by, persons at risk of homelessness. Any person
who needs emergency assistance to avoid homelessness must be able
to obtain this assistance without location, cultural, or language
barriers.
- To assure the most effective use of homeless
prevention dollars. These funds are considered effective when
they prevent homelessness in the immediate situation as well as
the long term. Therefore, there is emphasis on other services
to be provided along with emergency assistance.
- To develop a method, and related policies,
for the distribution of homeless prevention dollars to participating
agencies, and, ultimately, to benefit persons at imminent risk
of homeless. A practical method of distributing funds will be
developed.
- To promote cooperative planning and service
delivery as collaborative partners.
- To maximize coordination of efforts through
a shared database, Service Point
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