Current Efforts
In response to these barriers, our community has developed a wide range of solutions. While not yet matching the scale of the problem, they represent significant steps in a positive direction. In addition, many programs are moving towards developing a more comprehensive service delivery system. This includes a variety of programs, includingsuch as child care, temporary shelter, and transportation initiatives.
To improve the ability of this system to meet the needs of impoverished residents of Travis County, Austin Metropolitan Ministries (AMM) has encouraged the formation of assistance "clusters" among faith-based communities to better align their resources with public efforts. Historically, people in need of assistance have been forced to seek aid at multiple sites of all types, public, private and faith based, in order to meet their immediate needs: food from one provider, rent assistance from another, clothing from still another. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for persons forced to subsist in this manner and look for work, participate in job training or other education, or do anything that could allow them to become more self-sufficient. These clusters have collaborated to provide services with a more client-centered approach in order to minimize the number of systems that the client has to navigate.
While this "cluster" idea is in its early implementation stages, promising steps have been made. One example is the Downtown Cluster Collaboration. This cluster includes 12 different providers (8 congregations, 3 non-profits, and Travis County Emergency Assistance Program). Within this group, the Travis County site at Palm Square can serve as a single point of entry. Eligibility is completed for all partners at this point. Persons who are eligible are referred to Caritas (a private non-profit providing emergency basic needs assistance in the heart of downtown Austin) who provides direct assistance or financially connects the customer to any of the other 10 partners as appropriate. Throughout their involvement with this group of providers, the single intake assessment completed by Travis County staff is all that is required. Similar "clusters" are being developed elsewhere in Travis County to create single points of entry to basic needs assistance. In South Austin, a similar partnership of faith based organizations to supplement public resources using the countys Post Road assistance site for intake is nearing implementation. Such efforts to formally connect public and private providers can significantly improve our communitys support for low income residents.
The table in Appendix 1 presents a sampling of some positive developments, including public, private, and public/private collaborative efforts that make up the $7 million invested in basic needs for the community.
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