Homeless Solutions for Boulder County System Evaluation

Homeless Solutions for Boulder County (HSBC), established in 2017, is an innovative approach to homelessness that involves the participation of multiple government entities including Boulder County, the Cities of Boulder and Longmont; housing authorities; nonprofits working to impact homelessness; and other external partners. Through collaborative partnerships, HSBC helps coordinate a variety of services on behalf of individuals experiencing homelessness including case management, behavioral healthcare, housing placement, outreach, landlord recruitment, and other supports to ensure successful placement in and retention of housing. The system is implemented using a Housing First approach to ensure that efforts are low barrier and housing is accessed quickly.

Efforts are coordinated by two primary governing bodies: 1) an Executive Board consisting of government officials whose organizations invest in the homeless services system and 2) a Policy Implementation Group that is comprised of government leaders responsible for ongoing administration of the larger effort. In addition, a variety of workgroups exists that are made up of various non-profit stakeholders to further support broad-based collaboration. Also, an internally managed evaluation with ongoing data collection will help to support efforts of the chosen vendor.

The Executive Board of HSBC is requesting the services of a vendor to conduct an evaluation of recent efforts. The period of the project is relatively short; the hope is to have preliminary findings in June of 2024 so that these can be used for future policy and budgeting discussions. Desired products include:

• Report of historical data findings.
• Discussion of the strengths and challenges of the service and management systems.
• Summary of practice and research literature that is most relevant to HSBC efforts.
• Recommendations on 1) services needs with approximate costs, 2) Management/infrastructure improvements.

Posting RFP-026-24