PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Among the speakers during Wednesday morning's opening session at the BIF9 conference was Roseanne Haggerty, president of Community Solutions.
Haggerty's group has set itself the goal of creating homes for 100,000 homeless people, a milestone it expects to reach in 2014. Her "100,000 Homes Campaign" started in New York City -- specifically Times Square, a symbol of the city, tourist attraction and the place where hundreds of homeless people gathered. Until Haggerty's group used database methods to track those people.
They discovered that fewer than 20 chronically homeless people spent time in the square regularly. Her group focused on finding homes and the right help for those people. It worked. The result is an effort to help address the complex issues connected to homelessness. The campaign has now spread to more than 200 communities.
Despite her successes, Haggerty voiced a warning to both herself and the 400 people gathered in Trinity Repertory for the annual innovation conference: "Our pride in our most recent innovation actually may be the barrier to our next innovation."