Homeless systems manager searches for community solutions to homelessness through new position

CEDAR RAPIDS — J’nae Peterman’s new role is a “Goldilocks” job, of sorts.

After a decade at Waypoint, the former housing services director is doing a deep dive to find a path forward on homelessness that has eluded countless nonprofits and municipalities across the country.

But with a newly-created bird’s eye view of the city, Linn County and the nonprofits that serve them, the new homeless systems manager is not looking for just more funding. She’s here to find the most efficient path for everyone impacted by homelessness.

It’s an approach to services she and others call “right sizing” in the quest for a unified system, where service providers and the governmental entities helping to fund them can collaborate to reach their highest potential.

“My hope, with this position, is that we are able to create a unified system where, if someone begins to experience homelessness, we can catch them immediately and get them out of the system as quickly as possible,” Peterman said.

“Right now, I feel like all providers feel as though they’re in the trenches. They don’t have enough resources. They’re trying to do the best they can, but the inflow is too much for them to keep up with. If we can rightsize interventions and put resources where they need to be, providers may not feel that way anymore.”

The new position, assumed by Peterman in June, was created based on recommendations from the Washington, D.C.-based National Alliance to End Homelessness, which evaluated Cedar Rapids’ homeless systems last summer.

The city of Cedar Rapids and Linn County government, splitting the annual cost of $150,000, have funded the position for three years. The position, housed at the East Central Iowa Council of Governments in the Housing Trust Fund for Linn County division, reports to Linn County supervisors and the Cedar Rapids City Council monthly.

The three-year plan

Today, Peterman’s day-to-day workload dominated by meetings, data and spreadsheets may seem tedious. But with a deep dive into many of the same data sets that have been guiding homeless services for years, she’s seeing things she didn’t see before.

Analyzing this data will dominate her first year by laying an important foundation — defining the boundaries of various resources and marking the map to show where the community is on a path to solutions.

Since leaving Waypoint, she has found a fresh set of eyes and a new lens to see issues.

“When (homeless advocates) are laying in the trenches day to day, it’s hard to see beyond the problems we’re dealing with,” she said. “Stepping out of that has given me the perspective of a community member, and being sympathetic to that as well. We have to stay solution-focused not only for those experiencing homelessness, but also those experiencing it as a community member.”

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Said Alicia Faust, executive director of Willis Dady Homeless Services: “I’ve been in homeless services for the last 15 years. It’s all I see. Somebody who sees something else and has a different perspective is so important for us to keep in mind. J’nae empowers us as homeless service providers to set our ego aside and hear these other perspectives … so we can be better partners and work together better in the community.”

In her second year, Peterman plans to create a comprehensive street outreach strategy that can be shared between a few different service providers to meet needs and offer another level of support, particularly in downtown Cedar Rapids.

In her third year, the manager plans to define solutions and how to most efficiently invest in them — looking at each nonprofit’s strengths, addressing deficiencies and reducing overlap. Peterman said the top three challenges in homelessness are inefficient housing, a lack of adequate supports for those in housing and a lack of intentionally-designed mental health care and substance use treatment systems.

“It’s not a cause of homelessness, but it’s absolutely a symptom of homelessness,” she said of the latter two.

Drawing conclusions

In a situation that can seem dire, Peterman is finding a few silver linings in the data.

While people sleeping outdoors rose sharply from 2019 to 2023, it dropped slightly this year, according to Point in Time counts conducted by homeless service organizations.

About 60 to 70 percent of people entering shelters are getting connected to housing supports and, ultimately, finding success.

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“That’s good news. It’s not just this idea that people are out there and not wanting housing or supports,” Peterman said.

But the data is outlining gaps, too. Chief among them: it takes about 50 days, on average, for clients to get connected to housing services after making contact with a homeless service provider.

Affordable housing remains an issue. And for those needing more intensive support to re-adjust after chronic homelessness, the resources are even slimmer. Cedar Rapids has only 22 permanent supportive housing units with case managers who help clients reach long-term goals to escape a difficult cycle.

What does ‘rightsizing’ look like?

Addressing homelessness is not a “one size fits all” endeavor. Funding community resources shouldn’t be, either, Peterman said.

With data, Peterman hopes to look at not only metrics of how many have been served, but also at performance measures of how well they have been served.

“We can see where those bottlenecks are happening,” she said. “That data tells a story of how effectively we are doing this work.”

As a whole, it can be hard for a community to know what resources and interventions it should be investing in. By looking at both well-funded and underfunded programs across organizations, the new approach is a matter of making smart investments.

Take shelter beds, for example. Right now, Linn County has more shelter units for families than families in need. Meanwhile, Willis Dady is seeing higher shelter needs for single people.

“It’s ensuring that the right people are in the right place and we’re doing the right thing,” Faust said.

Unifying a system of services also will mean reconciling each nonprofit’s strengths in order to uplift organizations doing well and distribute resources for maximum impact.

“There’s three (organizations) providing rapid rehousing. If one has worse outcomes than the other two, how do we uplift the other two to provide more of what they’re doing well, and have a different focus for those not doing it as well?” Faust said. “Which could mean some difficult decisions internally.”

Finding solutions

“We’ve been trying so long to move forward and make meaningful progress in these areas,” said Ashley Balius, Linn County community outreach and assistance director. “In this realm, within homelessness, you have to look so much more systematically to make a difference, and this is helping us do that.”

Balius and Sara Buck, housing services manager for the city of Cedar Rapids, already are impressed by Peterman’s progress. A new sense of unity with a desire for meaningful change has put Peterman on good footing just less than four months in.

A community problem, they’ve realized, is going to require community solutions bigger than any one organization.

“We are a bunch of wonderful clocks in the clock shop. We’ve all worked together, we’re in the same space, but we’re very siloed,” Buck said. “What we need to be is one clock. If some other gear is a little bit off, I’m going to notice and jump in and see where to help out.”

Two new proposals, in particular, show promise.

The Landlord and Tenant Success Initiative, starting in November, will help increase the housing stock to housing-challenged tenants.

As of 2024, there is enough rental assistance funds to cover rent for all 150 estimated unhoused Linn County residents. But in many cases, the challenge is finding landlords willing to sign leases with them.

The program offers property owners a $1,000 cash incentive for each 12-month lease they sign with the clients. At the end of the lease, they can get a $500 bonus to renew.

The program also helps shield landlords from the risks of renting to previously homeless tenants. In addition to the cash payments, the program will help landlords mitigate damages beyond a tenant’s deposit and will reimburse them for nuisance abatement or eviction filings.

Meanwhile, tenants can earn up to $700 a year by staying on track with their goals, like increasing their income or attending mental health treatment, and taking classes at the Tenant Academy. There, they’ll learn how to be better renters — a skill set that will pay dividends both to them and the homeless resource system.

The $100,000 pilot is funded by Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust for its first year. It aims to successfully house 30 tenants with landlords for an entire lease term.

The second program, a $100,000 initiative funded by the Iowa Finance Authority, will bring in another needed perspective. With seven or eight members, a committee of those who have experienced or are experiencing homelessness will meet regularly to talk about their experience moving through resources and how systems could improve to better serve them. Funds will be used to pay those with lived experience for their time and detailed feedback, as well as to provide meals during meetings.

“They will be helping us understand our system through their eyes,” Peterman said.

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.