Before the pandemic, the number of unhoused people in Florida's Big Bend area was actually declining. But those figures have since rebounded. Now the main regional agency charged with caring for the unhoused is responding by re-inventing itself.
Despite vigorous effort over the past five years, the Big Bend Continuum of Care's latest point-in-time homeless survey shows the region's unhoused numbers remain stubbornly high. The agency's Executive Director, Joanna Coleman, says a new partnership with the SIE CoLab leadership consulting firm aims to connect the agency to every available community resource.
"How might we bring the right people to the table? That's why we wanted to bring the community out because someone might have something that sits with them and they may be the real changemaker in this. They may be the difference maker to come to the table and totally transform what we're doing."
Tuesday night's public forum at the Challenger Learning Center showed the work of several CoLab volunteer task forces to focus, streamline and connect the Continuum's mission to a much larger resource base.
