Dear Colleagues and Friends,
I’m writing to share some exciting news for Destination: Home. As you know, we have been a program of The Health Trust for the past seven years, and during that time we accomplished a lot together.
We started in 2011 with our community’s successful Housing 1000 campaign which has evolved over time into the county-wide Supportive Housing system. The findings from our cost of homelessness study Home Not Found put a price tag on homelessness, which led to the creation of an algorithm called The Silicon Valley Triage Tool that allows for the prioritization of high cost users in public safety net systems. And together, we led the county-wide adoption and implementation of the Community Plan to End Homelessness and saw the creation of the Office of Supportive Housing and the passage of Measure A. During this time we’ve seen 811 veterans find homes through the All The Way Home Campaign. Most recently, we’ve funded a $3.5M Homelessness Prevention System and have been forging living wage pathways for men and women in our Rapid Rehousing system.
Over the past year our board has been exploring options for us to become a more independent entity. After careful evaluation we are excited to share that our board voted unanimously to move from being ‘a program of The Health Trust’ to a legal entity called a ‘Supporting Organization’. A Supporting Organization is a legal IRS category with 501(c)3 status. Supporting Organizations are “supported” by another entity which provides audit, financial and HR services. In Destination: Home’s case, we’ve chosen to establish this new status in partnership with the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
We are excited to do this for several reasons, including our board’s intent for more autonomy and our desire to more deeply engage the private sector in our efforts to end homelessness. In the words of The Health Trust Interim CEO Charlie Bullock “Helping our County’s most vulnerable communities has always been a priority of The Health Trust. That is why seven years ago we welcomed Destination: Home as a program of The Health Trust, and why today, we completely support their transition to a Supporting Organization. We believe this is the right time for them to make this transition and that doing so will enhance their efforts towards ending homelessness in Santa Clara County.”
We are grateful to The Health Trust for giving us such a wonderful home for the past seven years and we remain committed as ever to working together. In fact, our offices are staying put!
We are looking forward to the next chapter of our work – with a continued singular focus of making homelessness rare, brief and non recurring in Santa Clara County – and while building new partnerships to help further our collective work. Emmett Carson, CEO of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation says it best: “Destination: Home has become Silicon Valley’s leading voice on ending homelessness, and it is poised to bring its expertise to an even wider stage in the years ahead. SVCF is proud that Destination: Home has become a supporting organization and we look forward to assisting the organization’s team in their crucial work to get people out of homelessness and into homes.”
We have a list of FAQs on our website that we hope will answer any questions you may have. For us, we are excited for this next chapter and look forward to continuing our work every single day – which is doing everything we can to make sure that no one in Santa Clara County has to live outside.
Before you go, check out the latest from our Community Plan To End Homelessness. We are happy to share a mid-year update reflecting our collective progress, including our community’s work to permanently house 3,708 people since August 2015.
You can see more about our community’s progress here.
With Gratitude,
Jennifer Loving