ECHO Holiday Newsletter

ECHO Newsletter

December 22, 2016

ECHO Holiday NewsletterEnd of Year Achievements and Updates

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As 2016 comes to a close, ECHO would like to take the time to thank each and every one of our stakeholders, funders, community partners, and volunteers for your fierce dedication to ending homelessness in Austin/Travis County. This community has much to be proud of and we look forward to all that we will accomplish together in the coming year.

We remain dedicated to walking side by side with every individual and family experiencing homelessness on their path to safe and stable housing.

See you next year,
The ECHO Team

December Updates

Austin Housing Fund

Your Donation Helps End Homelessness

In August, we announced the successful re-housing of 682 Veterans. With this strong momentum, ECHO is moving full speed ahead to re-house families with children, youth, and those experiencing chronic homelessness.

Donate and help us reach our goal of $250,000.

Help us end homelessness and donate here.

HUD 2016 CoC Funding Announced

Austin/Travis County CoC is proud to announce we've received all funding renewals and one newly reallocated project.

Click here for more information.

Austin is Working to Prevent and End Youth Homelessness

A Way Home America: 100 Day Challenge

On December 19th, Austin/Travis County completed its challenge to permanently house 50 youth aged 18-24 years old experiencing homelessness within 100 days! We exceed that goal and housed 52 youth experiencing homeless!

A comprehensive list of results will be available at awayhomeamerica.org

Our work to end youth homelessness isn't over. To learn more about the effort and how to help, please go to www.awayhomeaustin.org

New for 2017: Austin/Travis County Youth Advisory Council

The Youth Advisory Council (YAC) is fiercely committed to using our voice and expertise of lived experience to lead, advocate and inform our community plan to prevent and end youth homelessness. The YAC will directly correspond with the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) Advisory Board and will have a representative seat on the 2017 ECHO Membership Council to provide direct input on CoC policy and planning. The YAC representatives are diverse and include voices from youth of color, LGBTQ youth and youth with experience with the foster care system. In addition, the YAC representatives have experience with services provided by various community agencies such as OutYouth, LifeWorks, Austin Children’s Shelter, and the Settlement Home for Children.

To find out more about the YAC, please contact nikipaul@austinecho.org

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program Application

In partnership with LifeWorks, ECHO, the Austin/Travis County CoC successfully prepared and submitted the community application for the HUD Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program on November 29, 2016. This highly competitive demonstration grant would provide significant resources to support the Austin/Travis County Continuum of Care to develop and implement a coordinated community plan to prevent and end youth homelessness. We are very grateful for over 40 local governmental agencies, community organizations and other youth-serving stakeholders who have committed to this important local planning effort. We will keep everyone posted once the award announcement has been made in early 2017.

To find out more about this exciting opportunity, click here.

Youth Homelessness Needs Assessment Now Available

To gain a well-rounded perspective of the needs of youth experiencing homelessness, we combined qualitative and quantitative data collection methods, using a human-centered approach through which youth themselves were principal actors in providing insights into their experiences and by providing ideas on improving our community response system to their needs.

This needs assessment is available on the ECHO website or view it here.

2016 Highlights

Austin/Travis County Houses 682 Veterans

ECHO develops its first Needs and Gaps Analysis for Austin/Travis County

ECHO Team more than doubles in size to serve the community in a unique and specialized way