Advancing Community Together

Lane County has one of the highest per capita rates of homelessness in the nation. With thousands of individuals living unhoused in our community, the size of this crisis has grown too large for any one entity to solve alone. However, we believe together we can make real progress towards our SHARED VISION of making homelessness in our community rare, brief, and non-recurring.

A.C.T. Now Lane is a cross-sector coalition of community leaders joining forces to address our community’s housing and homeless crisis for good.

Join the Coalition

Photo Credit: Sarah Koski

Who we are

A.C.T. Now Lane is a cross-sector coalition of non-profit, business, government, education, neighborhood and unhoused individuals who have come together with the PURPOSE of addressing our community’s housing and homeless crisis.

Our long-term VISION is to make homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring. Our short-term GOAL is to reduce the number of individuals living unhoused and unsheltered in our community.

We know that an inadequate supply of affordable housing has contributed to the staggering numbers of individuals living unhoused in our community. Our PLAN is centered around addressing both the critical need for more housing and responding to the street-level crisis.

what we do

Together, we are rallying around a shared set of strategies that will allow for better collaboration, stronger advocacy, increased communication and transparency and engaging new ideas and needed resources.

AMPLIFY

We will amplify the good work happening by simplifying access to information, providing data and resources, identifying ways to engage and increasing public awareness.

ADVOCATE

We will advocate for additional resources and policy change where necessary by engaging with elected officials, community influencers and the broader public.

ADVANCE

We will advance shared strategies by leading as a coalition to improve cross-sector coordination, identify gaps, and hold our community accountable to solutions.

A ROAD MAP to get us there

Our community is doing A LOT to address our homeless and housing crisis. Over the course of several months, community partners have convened to identify the TOP STRATEGIES we believe can benefit from shared focus, attention and collaboration in order to accelerate our ability to reduce the number of community members experiencing homelessness in Lane County.

These strategies are organized in to three areas:

Housing & Prevention
We are focused on addressing the central cause of homelessness: our region’s housing crisis – and investing in strategies to increase housing units and prevent people who are unstably housed from falling into homelessness:
 

  1. Dramatically increase available housing with new production throughout the housing continuum, including supportive beds/units (from secure residential to permanent supportive), and bolstering innovative solutions (e.g., home sharing, turnkey/conversion projects)
  2. Increase ways to support targeted prevention assistance (financial & support services for unstably housed community members) and, where possible given the existing constrained housing market, to move households out of homelessness (e.g. diversion, rapid rehousing, vouchers)
  3. Preserve and rehabilitate current affordable housing units to maintain housing stock
Stabilization & Support
While we are building more housing, the coalition supports short- and mid-term strategies to reduce unsheltered homelessness, invigorate support services, and address public safety concerns:

  1. Improve the capacity of existing shelter organizations, advance coordinated access, maintain existing shelter, and expand diverse shelter options
  2. Improve service coordination in public spaces including safety, behavioral health, street outreach, and clean-up response efforts, to address accountability and safety concerns
  3. Reduce the number of unhoused people cycling through emergency rooms, jails, and the court system by investing in solutions to connect people directly to stabilizing locations and supportive services
  4. Create more employment pathways (training, jobs, supports) for individuals experiencing homelessness who are unemployed or under-employed
Improving the System
Focus on strategies that cross over both categories above:

  1. Continue to advance our coordinated entry and homeless data collection system 
  2. Support the capacity and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations addressing housing & homelessness
  3. Utilize a racial equity, trauma-informed, strength-based and client centered lens
  4. Increase public awareness and engagement (including regular reporting to measure and share the impact of our efforts), identify and develop strategies for additional resources and/or policy change, and improve cross-sector coordination and collective accountability

Coming together

Partners and Community Leaders from across sectors are coming together to Amplify, Advocate and Advance this work.

Join the Coalition

Get involved

Join the Coalition

Sign up below to join the coaliton and stay informed on progress, updates, and learn new ways to get involved.

Join the Coalition

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Name(Required)
Select an Option(Required)

Join Us

Stay informed on all we're doing to keep homelessness rare, brief, and non-reoccurring.

We promise we’ll never spam! Take a look at our Privacy Policy for more info.