The Housing First Partners Conference (HFPC) is co-presented by DESC (Downtown Emergency Service Center) and Pathways Housing First.
It was launched in 2012 as a biennial conference to further the conversation among practitioners about Housing First as a proven model for ending homelessness for those with chronic health conditions and long stints of street homelessness. Since then, Housing First has been implemented across many elements of the crisis response and homeless systems and is being successfully applied in diverse interventions and as an overall community approach to addressing homelessness.
HFPC 2012 forged this foundational national forum and dialogue for housing, health and mental health service providers, as well as federal, state and local government officials, researchers, advocates, trainers, peers, funders and thought leaders engaged in ending homelessness through Housing First approaches. HFPC 2014 expanded the discussion to include a collective understanding of Housing First policy and practice at the local, national and international levels and the role it is playing in changing mainstream systems. In 2016, we took Housing First to scale and expanded its implementation across all elements of our homelessness services, housing systems and policy change.
HFPC 2018 was another tremendous success and provided a unique focus and forum to ensure Housing First integrity as an overall community approach and a whole system response to achieve health, recovery and well-being of people experiencing homelessness.
It is the successes of Housing First, and the continued need for it, that we hope will drive your enthusiasm and and full engagement at HFPC 2020. See you then!