Dec 4 2007 - 12:00pm - Dec 4 2007 - 5:00pm

Staff and Volunteers: Event time is 10:30am - 6:00pm

Project Homeless Connect is a national daylong event to engage the public in innovative solutions toward ending homelessness. Project Homeless Connect (PHC) seeks to provide outreach to individuals experiencing chronic homelessness and facilitate the delivery of social services with a consolidated model that includes medical care, substance abuse and mental health counseling, and a variety of services that lead to permanent housing solutions and self-sufficiency.

Beginning in San Francisco, PHC has spread nationally with the work of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH). The USICH emphasizes local and national measuring and reporting of outcomes. In 2006, the USICH is expecting 35 cities to participate during the week of December 4th through December 8th.

Key themes of PHC include immediacy, hospitality, and community. To this end, PHC expedites positive consumer outcomes, including both stabilization and housing services, reduces barriers, creating a different experience for the consumer, and engages new partners and the larger community in ending the experience of chronic homelessness.

Based on the fifth goal in “Creating Homes, Strengthening Communities and Improving Systems: Philadelphia’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness,” endorsed by Mayor John F. Street in October 2005, Philadelphia’s participation in PHC will seek to not only serve individuals experiencing homelessness, but also generate the public will, civic support, and public and private resources needed to end homelessness.