From Modest Beginnings ...

Who We Are
From Modest Beginnings ...

From Modest Beginnings…

Breaking the cycle of homelessness in Columbus is the responsibility of the entire community. In 1986, Mel Schottenstein and Nancy Jeffrey worked together with the City of Columbus, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners, the United Way of Central Ohio, the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, the Metropolitan Area Church Council, the ADAMH Board, The Columbus Foundation and the Leo Yassenoff Foundation to fashion a collective community response to homelessness.

That first year, two shelters split the initial "blended" funding of approximately $600,000. Currently, the Community Shelter Board allocates $10.8 million annually to support programs and services of CSB and its partner agencies. This year, CSB and its partner agencies will provide emergency services to more than 7,200 persons (men, women, and children).

To National Recognition….

Through the development of supportive housing, improved emergency shelters, and resources that enable individuals and families to resolve their housing crisis, the Community Shelter Board's work to end homelessness is outcome and quality driven, resource efficient and national recognized:

The Spring 2007 edition of SHELTERFORCE, published by the National Housing Institute, included a public policy feature on homelessness which also profiled the work and successes of Rebuilding Lives, including Sunshine Terrace – a partnership between the YMCA of Central Ohio and the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority.
In February 2007, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Health Management Associates released the report Integrating Publicly Funded Physical and Behavioral Health Services: A Description of Selected Initiatives. The Community Shelter Board and the Rebuilding Lives PACT Team Initiative (RLPTI) are one of thirteen programs featured in the report. RLPTI is a local collaborative of behavioral health, primary care, housing and other supports designed as part of a federal strategy to abolish chronic homelessness in the United States.
CSB has become a national model for many cities looking for effective solutions to end homelessness. In September 2006, The Rebuilding Lives initiative was highlighted in an article written by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The article spoke about the wonderful success of the Rebuilding Lives initiative and its positive impact on addressing the issue of homelessness in Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio.
CSB was featured in a national report released by Freddie Mac in May 2006 that revealed family homelessness is a solvable problem. The report, “Promising Strategies to End Family Homelessness”, highlighted the Columbus community for its decreases in family homelessness. In Columbus, family homelessness declined 40 percent from 1,168 families in 1995 to 696 families in 2004.
Barbara Poppe, CSB Executive Director was a featured speaker at the January and July 2006 conferences hosted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. At the January conference, Ms. Poppe presented “Creating Change” a plan focusing on the issues specific to family homelessness. While speaking at the July conference, she met with both Congresswoman Deborah Pryce and Congressman Pat Tiberi to update them on our work and to discuss federal programs and appropriations for homelessness.
In December 2005, Barbara Poppe, CSB Executive Director presented to Congressional staff members about the benefits of ending long-term or chronic homelessness. Participants heard from local and national experts about how supportive housing ends long-term homelessness; the benefits to homeless people and to the public systems that serve them; and the importance of the Services for Ending Long-Term Homelessness Act (SELHA).
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development presented HMIS Conference awards to over 40 communities for innovation in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) field at the 2005 National HMIS Conference held in September in St. Louis. The Community Shelter Board won the “Homeless Information Systems Pioneer” award from HUD in recognition of our outstanding achievement in the field of HMIS implementation and innovation. Award topics ranged from outstanding performance of communities participating in the Annual Homeless Assessment Report to pioneers in the field of HMIS.
In June 2005, CSB Executive Director, Barbara Poppe was featured in Esquire Magazine. The article, “Homelessness – THE CURE: Build Them a Home,” told the story of how the Rebuilding Lives initiative was developed and implemented in Columbus and Franklin County.
CSB was featured in Elwood M. Hopkins’ recent book, Collaborative Philanthropies: What Groups of Foundations Can Do That Individual Funders Cannot. Hopkins is the executive director of the Los Angeles Urban Funders, a division of the Southern California Grantmakers, and utilized research conducted with foundations and funder collaboratives around the world to investigate the concept of philanthropy. He has found that these collaborations enable unmatched success in grant making and necessary change. The book offers intuitive ideas geared towards more efficient philanthropy in the future. CSB was highlighted as an organization with unique input and ideals. Hopkins emphasizes the significance of collaboration where service providers apply directly to CSB for funds, not their original sources, and the board of trustees votes on each allocation. The publication notes that CSB has set a precedent for funder collaboratives in the future.
CSB was profiled in a report written by former U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretaries Jack Kemp and Henry Cisneros and published by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, that calls for the President and Congress to make affordable housing a top priority in our nation. The report outlines 12 recommendations to address our nation's housing problems. The Community Shelter Board's Housing First approach is highlighted under the reports first recommendation - Ending Chronic Homelessness. To order a copy of the report "Opportunity and Progress - A Bipartisan Platform for National Housing Policy", visit www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/governmentprograms/opportunity_and_progress.htm.
CSB Executive Director Barbara Poppe received the 2004 Buddy Gray Award for homeless activism from the National Coalition for the Homeless in April 2004. The award honors the late Buddy Gray, who was a tireless homeless activist in Cincinnati for many years.

In March 2004, the National Alliance to End Homelessness released a report Housing First For Families: Research to Support the Development of a Housing First for Families Training Curriculum. The Community Shelter Board and the Family Housing Collaborative are one of eleven programs featured for using the Housing First method. CSB Program Director, Tom Albanese is quoted and provided input into the content of the report. A housing first approach rests on two central premises:
For a copy of the report, visit www.naeh.org.
Columbus and Franklin County is one of seven communities recognized for leading the way to end chronic street homelessness. A report released March 2, 2004 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development highlighted efforts underway in Birmingham, Alabama; Boston; Columbus, Ohio; Los Angeles; Philadelphia; San Diego; and, Seattle. The report, Strategies for Reducing Chronic Street Homelessness, reported that leaders and providers in each of the seven cities are breaking from traditional approaches to find cutting edge methods to help those living on the streets. The report complimented Columbus' approach, noting "Rebuilding Lives is a comprehensive and ambitious initiative that represents a 'paradigm shift' in the community's approach to homelessness. In addition to providing Columbus with a well-developed vision and goals, the initiative included a very concrete mechanism for funding and monitoring the plan." For a copy of Strategies for Reducing Chronic Street Homelessness, visit www.huduser.org/publications/povsoc/chronichomelessness.html.
The January 26, 2004 edition of the Christian Science Monitor recognized Columbus and the Community Shelter Board for its “bold approach to chronic homelessness" through the Rebuilding Lives plan. The article noted that Columbus is “at the forefront of a trend gaining momentum in cities: housing the chronically homeless …as Columbus nears the end of a five-year plan to transform its strategy, the rest of the country is watching.”
In December 2003, the National Center on Family Homelessness, along with the National Foundation Advisory Group for Ending Homelessness and the Neighborhood Funders Group, released the guidebook Ending Homelessness: The Philanthropic Role. The Columbus Foundation and the Community Shelter Board are featured for our unified front to end homelessness which has led to the leveraging of new federal funds and strong support from the philanthropic community.
On October 1, 2003, CSB Executive Director, Barbara Poppe, and CSB Advisory Board member, Holly Schottenstein Kastan, made a presentation in Washington D.C. to the Interagency Council on Homelessness on Columbus and Franklin County's successful efforts to address and reduce homelessness through the Rebuilding Lives plan.
On August 15, 2003, the Community Shelter Board was one of 52 non-profit organizations in central Ohio that met the Better Business Bureau's new 20 standards of charitable accountability that were developed to help donors in making giving decisions. A full BBB report on CSB can be obtained through www.centralohiobbb.org.
A June 9, 2003 editorial in the New York Times recognized Columbus and the Community Shelter Board for its cutting edge programs. “The old ‘crackdown’ approach of treating the homeless as blight to be cyclically warehoused and forgotten in cavernous barracks is being replaced by a weave of new programs. These deliver real housing along with well-focused medical and social services. Such cities as Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Phoenix and Columbus, Ohio have pioneered this approach, aiming to engage the homeless….”
“Getting to YIMBY: Lessons in YES in My Back Yard”, published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition recognized the Community Shelter Board and Faith Mission/Lutheran Social Services for fostering community acceptance in the Milo-Grogan neighborhood with the opening of the new Faith Mission on 8^th Avenue. "A Shelter's Careful Path from Opposition to Acceptance" in the No. 1, 2003 issue recounts that "two years after its opening and three years after the effort to site the shelter began, the Faith Mission shelter seems to have developed a recipe for success, garnering support of its most ardent critics..."
The results of the first nationwide study on comprehensive plans to address homelessness entitled “Evaluation of Continuums of Care for Homeless People” was released by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on August 19, 2002. Franklin County and Columbus, Ohio was included in the study and was recognized as a high-performer within HUD’s Continuum of Care process. The report commended the Community Shelter Board’s role and stated, “CSB has employed an outcomes-based funding model for nearly five years, creating an atmosphere of success, accountability, and results.”
The Community Shelter Board received the 2002 Nonprofit Sector Achievement Award from the National Alliance to End Homelessness. CSB was recognized for its leadership and work to build partnerships necessary to end homelessness. The award was given to CSB on behalf of the Columbus and Franklin County community on March 19, 2002, in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
In June 2001, the Urban Institute released a new book on homelessness. In the book, Helping America’s Homeless: Emergency Shelter or Affordable Housing? by Martha Burt, Laudan Aron and Edgar Lee, the Community Shelter Board was cited for its efforts to offer policy makers and practitioners valuable information to guide them in developing programs that prevent first time and repeat spells of homelessness as well as ameliorate the effects of homelessness.
The Public Relations Society of America recognized the Community Shelter Board and Edward Howard & Co. with a Silver Anvil Award on June 15, 2001 in recognition of our community relations campaign for “Building A Supportive Community to End Homelessness." The Community Shelter Board was one of 46 winners out of 736 entries. The Silver Anvil is annually awarded to public relations practitioners who, in the judgement of their peers, have successfully addressed a contemporary issue with exemplary professional skill, creativity and resourcefulness.
In June 1999, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) honored the CSB as being one of the best efforts in the nation for addressing homelessness. A special report developed by GAO praised CSB for playing a central role among service providers and programs in the community and for ensuring that the whole system works together.
In November 1995, The Columbus Foundation during its Celebration of Philanthropy, presented Nancy Jeffrey, Mel Schottenstein, and the Community Shelter Board with The Columbus Foundation Award. The award, which recognizes outstanding vision and achievement, is awarded to organizations that have made a significant difference in the quality of life in our community, and to the individuals who have shaped those institutions. CSB was recognized for its work that has made it possible for thousands of people to receive the shelter and support services they need, and, for many, a permanent home.