Meeting Notes: Bridge Coalition Meeting on September 23rd
Opening Comments (Jim):
- A broad overview of NorthStar Advocates Mission and purpose was discussed,
- Focusing on return to community: safe housing, relationships, and supporting young adults facing unaccompanied homelessness interests and passions.
The Bridge Scope and Vision (Jim):
- High rate of return to homelessness for young people exiting inpatient care,
- Cross-system information sharing and training,
- Developing Return To Community Plan,
- Developing opportunities for systems reform.
1929 Housing Provider Updates:
Friends of Youth – Bridge Pointe Housing
Presenters: Brooke Jenin, Senior Director of Youth Programs and Blanca Gonzalez Bridge Pointe Program Manager
Friends of Youth shared exciting progress on their Bridge Pointe Housing program:
- Open & Accepting Referrals: The program is now live, with eligibility criteria and referral details available through their website. Referrals are accepted from anyone in the community, and the team is actively screening and onboarding young people.
- Supports Offered: Youth residents have access to behavioral health support, peer support, and wraparound community services. Each young person has their own bed, creating a stable foundation for recovery and growth.
- Current Tenants & Growth: Three tenants are already placed, and the program will be full by next week. After a slower start, referrals and inquiries have increased rapidly. Tenants are motivated to take the next steps in their lives—one has already secured employment.
- Expansion: A second Bridge Pointe house will open in October/November, with construction (including an ADA-accessible unit) scheduled to be completed by the end of October.
- Save the Date: A Ribbon Cutting Ceremony is planned for November 4th from 11:00- 1:00 at Friends of Youth.
- Challenges Noted: Documentation remains a barrier for many young people exiting inpatient care, particularly access to IDs, driver’s licenses, and social security cards.
Excelsior Wellness – Bridge Housing
Presenters: Lauren Zunker Executive Director of Transition Age Programs, Dylan Remirez Bridge Housing Program Manager, Malecka Nachtshiem Case Coordinator, and Kayla Barringer Clinical Manager
Excelsior Wellness provided an update on the launch of their Bridge Housing program:
- Preparation & Training: In early August, staff completed a training with NorthStar Advocates, which they found highly beneficial.
- Facility Setup: The program moved into a lower-level, central space at their facility. Despite some unexpected delays, the space is ready to support up to eight young people.
- Staffing & Coordination:
- Dylan emphasized his focus on coordination and ensuring staff are trained, supported, and resourced.
- Malecka will lead referrals and community outreach, helping youth develop their Return to Community Plans.
- Jim and Sarah from NorthStar Advocates will continue providing technical assistance to strengthen program implementation for both providers.
- Therapeutic Services: Kayla highlighted the program’s emphasis on safety and wellbeing. Youth will have access to animal-assisted therapy (via Second Chance Ranch), mindfulness practices, and DBT groups. Activities are designed to be healing and supportive, without horseback riding.
Functional Zero Presentation
Presenter: Cecily Ferguson, Functional Zero Manager
Office of Homeless Youth Cecily.Ferguson@commerce.wa.gov
Cecily Ferguson, the newly appointed Functional Zero Manager with the Office of Homeless Youth at the Department of Commerce, gave a fantastic presentation on the history, purpose, and future of Functional Zero. She highlighted that this work originally began with A Way Home Washington, and after that organization sun-setted, it became imperative to continue the incredible progress made over the years. To ensure that momentum was not lost, the project transitioned to the Office of Homeless Youth, where Cecily now leads efforts to make youth and young adult homelessness rare, brief, and one-time.
Her presentation grounded the coalition in both the practical framework of Functional Zero and the visionary leadership role of young people in shaping solutions.
Functional Zero
Ensuring youth and young adult homelessness is rare, brief, and one-time.
Questions to Consider:
- What does “ending youth and young adult homelessness” mean to you?
- What would this look like?
- What would this feel like?
- How would you know?
Functional Zero – What is the What
- Youth and Young Adult Homelessness is rare, brief, and one-time
- Ending, not just responding
- Justice – to end homelessness, we need to end disproportionality too
- Data – we need to know our impacts, learn, and adjust
- Lived Experience Leadership – we cannot end YYA homelessness without young people’s expertise and leadership
Functional Zero – Continued
Communities that reach and sustain Functional Zero have the capacity to:
- Prevent most experiences of homelessness
- Quickly identify unaccompanied YYA experiencing homelessness or housing instability
- Quickly resolve homelessness with connections to safe and stable housing
Functional Zero (FZ) is a set of measures communities across the country use to determine if they have functionally ended homelessness.
Youth and Young Adult Homelessness is Solvable
Functional Zero is a framework, tool, and method to:
- Understand what it will take on a community and state level
- End youth and young adult homelessness
- Make meaningful and measurable reductions toward that goal
Communities commit to:
- Lived Experience Leadership
- Best Available Data (B.A.D.)
- Addressing Disproportionality
- Continuous Quality Improvement
- Community of Practice
Communities for Functional Zero (C4F0)
Washington communities participating:
- Walla Walla
- Pierce
- Yakima
- Spokane
- Whatcom
- Skagit
- Thurston
- Jefferson/Clallam
- Clark
Functional Zero – What Does It Mean
- Ending homelessness is possible if we are working together toward a shared aim
- Defining the goal and how to measure it (Functional Zero) is critical
- Ending homelessness isn’t a milestone achievement—it’s creating a new reality where homelessness is rare, brief, and one-time
- Communities across the country are solving homelessness for specific subpopulations (Veterans, Chronic, Youth, Families, Single Adults, All)
- Functional Zero is a measure of whether they’re achieving these goals
Functional Zero – Main Things
Four components of achieving FZ:
- Homelessness is rare, brief, and one-time
- Community is operating off a full accounting of homelessness
- Community is working toward equitable systems
- Achievements are sustained over time, even as local conditions change
System-Level Data Insights
By-name/system-level data helps communities answer:
- How many people became homeless for the first time this month?
- How many people are returning to homelessness?
- How many people exited from homelessness to stable housing this month?
- Are the experiences equitable?
This data shows whether strategies are driving numbers down, and if not, where communities need to pivot.
Sustainability
- Communities work on reducing homelessness until they reach Functional Zero, then must sustain it.
- Numbers may rise due to external factors, but Functional Zero tracks whether systems can continuously reduce them.
Equity
- Any system not designed to address disparities will perpetuate them.
- Ending YYA homelessness requires equitable outcomes for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, POC, and LGBTQIA+ youth.
Communities for Functional Zero (C4F0) – In Practice
Includes:
- System-level data
- Case conferencing
- Systems of care partnerships
- Lived Experience Leadership + Youth Action Boards
- Community of Practice (local & statewide)
- Diversion and prevention
The How
- Continuous Quality Improvement (Plan, Do, Study, Act)
- Reducing strategies (using system-level data)
- Tests of change / improvement projects
- System of care collaboration
Tests of Change / Improvement Projects
Examples:
- Case conferencing
- Reducing inactive cases
- Increasing exits to stable housing
- Diversion/Prevention
Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)
- Cycle of determining what works and what can be improved
- Identify strengths and areas of improvement, then test changes
- Systemic, data-driven, open to change
Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA)
A method to create and sustain changes:
- Plan – Set objective, predictions, needed steps, and data plan
- Do – Run the test, collect data
- Study – Analyze outcomes, compare to predictions, summarize learnings
- Act – Make changes, start another cycle
Model for Improvement
- What are we trying to accomplish?
- How will we know that a change is an improvement?
- What change can we try to result in improvement?
Youth Behavioral Health Summit
Presenter: Mayauna, Lived Experience Expert with NorthStar Advocates
Mayauna, shared updates on the upcoming Youth Behavioral Health Summits that NorthStar Advocates has been developing. Over the past several months, NorthStar has hosted planning sessions to envision and design a more accessible, equitable, and culturally responsive behavioral health system for youth and young adults. The goal throughout has been to center youth and young adult voices, lived experience, and accessibility in every step of this work.
These planning sessions led to the decision to host quarterly youth summits rather than one large annual event. Quarterly sessions—four per year, held virtually—will allow for more accessibility, realistic participation, and ongoing engagement with young people’s input.
The purpose of these summits is to gather guidance from youth and young adults on the most culturally informed, developmentally appropriate, and equitable practices for behavioral health treatment.
NorthStar plans to bring this idea forward to the Department of Commerce and the Office of Homeless Youth’s Y4Y Action Board—a statewide board of youth ages 16–26 with lived experience of housing instability. A co-agency planning committee will be developed between NorthStar and Y4Y Board members to collaboratively build the summits and their topics.
Timeline: The first quarterly youth summit is scheduled for Quarter 1 of 2026. After completing a year of summits, NorthStar will review the data and feedback from young people statewide to determine next steps. This could eventually include organizing a larger statewide youth behavioral health event.
Community Updates:
- No updates.
Closing Comments:
- Jim closed the meeting and thanked everyone for their support and active participation in this work. The next meeting is scheduled for October 28th from 1:00-2:30.
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