Mission & Goals

The Homeless Leadership Coalition (HLC) is a collaboration of community partners in Crook, Jefferson, and Deschutes counties and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs engaging the community through education, advocacy, planning, prioritization and accountability for services to persons experiencing homelessness.

Who We Are

Central Oregon has long recognized the need for a more coordinated and informed response to homelessness and people living in poverty.  Since the late 1990’s, The Central Oregon Homeless Leadership Coalition has been tackling this challenging and often dynamic problem.

The HLC consists of more than 40 organizations and individuals from Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson Counties and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.  They include shelter providers, public schools, public health, emergency services, veterans outreach, faith communities, public safety, mental health, housing services, public services, private employers, people with lived experience of homelessness and others.  They represent a diverse group of interests, unified by a common focus.

We are driven by the knowledge that together “we are stronger, healthier, safer communities where people can thrive when everyone has a safe, stable place to call home!”

We work toward this vision by

  • Promoting community-wide commitment to employ best practices to end homelessness in Central Oregon;
  • Securing funding for efforts by providers and government entities to prevent homelessness and quickly re-house homeless individuals and families in Central Oregon, while minimizing the trauma and dislocation that homelessness causes to individuals, families, and communities;
  • Promoting access to and effective utilization of mainstream programs by homeless individuals and families; and
  • Optimizing self-sufficiency among individuals and families who experience homelessness.

What We Do

The HLC works to prevent and end homelessness by improving tri-county and cross-system collaboration and coordination so that our communities will have a comprehensive response in place that ensures homelessness is prevented whenever possible, or if it can’t be prevented, it is a rare, brief, and non-recurring experience.

The HLC’s Governing Board serves as the Board for the Central Oregon Continuum of Care (CoC), overseeing the HUD CoC funding for homeless programs, conducting the annual Point in Time Count of people who are experiencing homelessness, conducting system planning, prioritization, a gaps analysis and coordination of the CoC, implementing HMIS (homeless management information system), implementing and overseeing a Coordinated Entry System, and ensuring the CoC is successfully meeting HUD’s System Performance Measures.

In addition, the HLC undertakes a variety of other activities and initiatives to support the efforts to prevent and end homelessness in Central Oregon as outlined in High Desert Home.  This includes education and outreach on homelessness, research and data support, systems coordination and training on best-practices in order to develop new, coordinated strategies to prevent and end homelessness in our region.

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