The Pursuit of Coordination: The Organizational Dimension in the Response to Homelessness

The pursuit of “coordination” has been a prominent theme both in local responses to homelessness and in the current incentives in federal housing policy. This article reviews some of the conditions that make coordination important yet difficult to achieve in the homeless area. A variety of approaches for achieving coordination at the local level are reviewed, ranging from point‐of‐service coordination to system‐design. The local examples are drawn from the cities participating in the evaluation of The Robert Wood Johnson and the Department of Housing and Urban Development Homeless Families Program. The questions of effectiveness and future prospects for homeless service coordination are raised.