Success Stories
As a catalyst to end homelessness, Building Changes focuses on building the capacity of housing and service providers and increasing State and local collaboration to achieve this goal. We celebrate success when our partners are better able to provide individuals and families with the opportunity to have a healthy life, a good job, and a place to call home.
Featured success story:
HOPWA Technical Assistance: Building Changes Nurtures Social Change through Inspired Training
For the past thirteen years, Building Changes has provided Technical Assistance (TA) to Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) (a program of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, aka “HUD”) grantees across the U.S. Our TA staff serves 2,000 providers annually through on-site trainings, phone consultations, and resource dissemination. We focus on personalized training that resolves problems, offers innovative approaches for housing and service providers, and nurtures change. Our goal is to assist providers and program developers in supporting the dignity of those living with HIV/AIDS through safe and affordable service-enriched housing. Our geographic coverage includes: the Midwest, Southwest, West, Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, and U.S. Territories of Guam, Saipan, Virgin Islands, and Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Building Changes’ HIV/AIDS Housing Initiatives Manager, Mariah Ybarra (pictured above, left, with colleague Perrin Burnes), has been at the helm of our efforts in this area for more than eleven years. Mariah notes, “I have the deepest respect for the nonprofit organizations working to meet the needs of vulnerable persons living with HIV/AIDS and experiencing homelessness. Without federal, state, and local funding, many of these organizations would not easily exist. The challenges of administering and managing government funding in accordance with the regulations is no easy task. The acronyms and regulatory jargon, alone, can be confounding to many of our clients.”
“Building Changes staff brings to the table not only an understanding of all the rules and regulations guiding various funding programs – they bring the rest of the HOPWA world to us!” noted Catherine Hummel, Program Specialist in Transitional and Supportive Services at the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority. “Technical assistance is not often associated with inspiration and the human soul,” Catherine said, “but when all of our people gathered, Mariah addressed their unique needs, including those we ultimately serve – clients with HIV/AIDS. Many of our folks come from rural parts of the state where the barriers they face are often magnified. Being spiritually restored, while learning how to creatively comply with so many regulations, is a refreshing experience. People left totally jazzed about what they were doing.”
As HIV/AIDS programs across the country have opened their services to other homeless and low-income individuals, demands on Building Changes staff have increased. Perrin Burnes, an HIV/AIDS Housing Advisor, joined the team in 2008. Perrin’s knowledge of property/asset management and social work helps meet those growing demands. Perrin and Mariah work together to train HIV/AIDS housing providers who help diverse populations overcome tremendous obstacles.
“These providers enrich the lives of thousands of men, women, and children who face oppression and discrimination while coping with a disease that requires constant maintenance,” says Perrin. “My desire to make a difference in people’s lives has culminated with my work at Building Changes.”
Making a difference sometimes means our staff deals with touchy issues. Steve Bacon, Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services’ HIV Supportive Services Program Manager, was in one such situation. “My position was vacant for a period of time, and like many state government service offices, we’re short staffed a good bit of the time. Though lack of clarity on a number of regulations resulted in unclear internal polices, we needed to keep the program running – no matter what. Building Changes staff helped me develop a transition plan that resulted in a smooth flow of policy revision and service continuation. Not a single end user lost the services they needed.”
There’s an old adage in the consulting world: You are only a prophet 100 miles away from home. Shelly Vinson, Housing Specialist, CARE Section at the California Department of Public Health/Office of AIDS, brought this up when we visited. “My people listened to Mariah and respected Mariah. It was good for them to hear things from someone besides me. … the same old voice saying the same old things. Perrin, through her assistance in organizing a statewide gathering, and Mariah, through her authentic interest in providers and their concerns, brought forth a deep sense of professionalism, drawing on technical knowledge and heartfelt life experiences. I guess the prophets humanized technical assistance!”
Wailuku, Hawaii (on Maui) is some 2,700 miles from Seattle, and, according to Executive Director of the Maui AIDS Foundation Keith Wolter, it is “as much a state of the mind as a State of the Union.” Think about it: Hawaii is one of the 50 states, but it’s also an island archipelago, an overthrown, occupied kingdom, and in some ways, a third world country with massive disparities regarding wealth and health.
“Mariah understands the diversity of the Neighbor Islands, which comprise ten percent of Hawaii’s population and whom the Foundation serves as the HOPWA administrative grantee,” said Wolter. “State government considers our service area rural, though one must understand that it is not rural in the same way mainland states have rural areas – here it is much more socially layered, culturally diverse, and politically complex. We needed help. Collaboration was far from strong. There were no manuals to follow. We had no clear understanding regarding federal rules and regulations related to housing. Life in ‘HOPWA land’ was fuzzy. Building Changes’ staff provided clarity, patience and understanding.”
From Puerto Rico to the Hawaiian Islands, Building Changes provides compassionate, innovative, hands-on technical assistance that results in greater compliance with federal mandates. We help people learn, create policies, and run programs, while addressing troublesome political issues. And we do this with a mindfulness around cultural, social, and geographic diversity, and with a hope that that our support inspires our clients to continue to care more about people than jargon.
Perhaps “TA” isn’t so technical after all.
For nearly twenty years, Building Changes has been a national leader in providing expert advice to agencies serving marginalized people in their communities. Learn more about our Consulting Services.
