Strategy & Approach

Denton County Homelessness Leadership Team

In 2016, the City of Denton and United Way of Denton County joined together in a public-private partnership to form the Denton County Homelessness Leadership Team (DCHLT) and take a Collective Impact approach towards addressing homelessness in Denton County.

The mission of the DCHLT is to foster an effective and coordinated system of homelessness prevention and intervention, resulting in homelessness that is rare, brief and nonrecurring. The DCHLT is a collaborative policy making team including representatives from:

  • Community members
  • Denton County
  • Educational institutions
  • Health care providers
  • Homelessness/housing service providers
  • Law enforcement
  • Municipal governments
  • Workforce/business development
  • United Way of Denton County, which serves as backbone support to coordinate the partners and efforts

Learn more by about the DCHLT by visiting the United Way of Denton County website.

Housing Crisis Response System

Beginning in 2016, the DCHLT took on a major initiative to create a coordinated Housing Crisis Response System in Denton County. This initiative transformed and changed homelessness service agencies from working independently to a networked crisis response system across Denton County working together to prevent homelessness and rapidly return people who experience homelessness to stable housing.

What does this mean?

  • All agencies use a shared, centralized system, called the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS); any actions and referrals are tracked and can be seen by all agencies in Denton County in order to provide better service and outcomes
  • Every individual experiencing homelessness is assessed to identify their unique needs and be connected to the appropriate resources and housing intervention. This is referred to as the Coordinated Entry system assessment and can be done at any of the participating agencies. To find out more about participating agencies and how to get assistance, visit the Find Help page
  • This creates a coordinated Housing Priority List (HPL), an actively managed and prioritized list of the names and unique needs of every person
  • A local team of approximately 15 case managers meets together every week to review and actively work through the HPL to determine who is new to the list (inflow), who has moved off the list (outflow), who may have changed in priority, and what housing units or funding is available or coming available in order to get individuals and families housed and stay housed

DCHLT Strategic Plan & Data Dashboard

The DCHLT continues to analyze and evaluate the Housing Crisis Response System to determine next steps and set goals. In October 2018, the DCHLT updated its Strategic Plan with goals to increase access to housing by 10%, improve homelessness data management, and end veteran homelessness in Denton County by 2020. A copy of the plan is available on the Strategic Plan and Citizen Survey page.

The DCHLT also maintains an active Data Dashboard updated monthly sharing data on homelessness in Denton County, including households experiencing homelessness, housing intervention need, demographics, housing placements, and system performance measures. View the dashboard on the United Way of Denton County's site.