5/ people in housing have an essential voice because housing presents a bunch of new challenges. But it’s the voice of homeless people who have not been helped we need to amplify the most. It’s their feedback that will drive the most positive change. Of course, we have to want it

4/ instead of forming a lived experience committee, we should be developing protocols and systems to listen to homeless people in real-time. We MUST include homeless people who refuse our services to learn how to improve to help more people while reducing costs at the same time.

3/ in the for-profit world, if a business doesn’t listen to their customers, they will eventually seek to exist. Growing businesses listen to customers first. In homeless services, we wait until they are on stage or on a panel speaking at a conference to PRETEND to listen!

2/ instead of listening in real-time, the sector creates lived experience committees with mostly formerly homeless people. Folks are vetted, and there’s a caregiver/power relationship, so feedback is biased through the staff that selected participants and not always authentic.

It’s mind-blowing that we make such a big deal out of listening to people with lived experience. Listening to the people we serve should be at the foundation of everything we do. Outreach, case managers, executive staff should all be on the frontlines listening to homeless people

How can we help the homeless? Let's start by asking them latimes.com/california/story…