This guide outlines various strategic contributions that foundations can make to prevent and end homelessness:
* Advocacy and public education to increase the understanding of homelessness, build public will, and make change to local, state, and national policies.
* Community planning to bring all stakeholders to the table with the explicit purpose of ending homelessness.
* Prevention programs and systems change to intervene before people become homeless.
* Housing production, rehabilitation, and preservation to maintain and expand the supply of affordable housing.
* Integration of fragmented systems to provide coordinated and comprehensive services.
* Specialized supportive services to keep formerly homelesspeople housed.
Hopefully, these exemplary programs will inspire more foundations to realize that ending homelessness is an integral component of their missions and prompt them to accelerate ahistorically minimal level of funding in this area. If all foundations engaged in human services join forces in local and national efforts, homelessness can be ended before it becomes apermanent feature of the national landscape.