AAEH Advance to Zero Campaign Briefing

Attending the AHURI/Homelessness Australia National Homelessness Conference?

Come to the Advance to Zero campaign briefing just before registrations to hear more about the efforts of communities across Australia to end homelessness. 

The briefing will provide the opportunity to hear directly from communities involved with the campaign from across Australia, and how you can get involved or learn more. There will also be a presentation on the overall campaign and what it is seeking to achieve (see more info on this below). 

With more than 25 communities participating in the campaign, inspired by a growing number of communities in the US and Canada that have ended homelessness, this event is not to be missed. 

Tea, coffee and light morning tea will be provided. 

Places are limited, RSVP essential

Date: 8th August 2022, 12:45 for a 1pm start, finishes at 2pm

Location: The Aquilla Room - Crowne Plaza Canberra, 1 Binara St, Canberra ACT 2601

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Note: Thank you to the AAEH Partners for making this event possible, as well as AHURI and Homelessness Australia. 

The Advance to Zero Campaign is a groundbreaking national initiative of the Australian Alliance to End Homelessness that supports local collaborative efforts to end homelessness, starting with rough sleeping – one community at a time. Using a range of proven approaches from around the world, communities are supported to not just address or even reduce homelessness, but to end it. 

The campaign itself is a collaboration (or what’s sometimes called a collective impact initiative) between a broad range of communities, organisations and individuals that are all committed to making homelessness rare, brief and a one-time occurrence - how we define an end to homelessness. 
The Advance to Zero (AtoZ) Campaign utilises a methodology that has been developed by the various partners of the AAEH across Australia and brings together knowledge of what is working from efforts around the world. 

The Campaign supports community-based efforts to build public support for ending homelessness and political support for renewed Commonwealth, State and Local Government investment in the type of housing, support services and healthcare needed to end homelessness in each community. 
The AAEH supports communities participating in the AtoZ campaign through a series of six monthly improvement cycles, through which communities work together and share knowledge about their efforts to end homelessness. With our international and domestic partners, the AAEH provides training, coaching and other infrastructure or tools-based support through these improvement cycles.  

Whilst the Campaign starts with rough sleeping, it does not finish there. Some communities also focus on all chronic homelessness, families, veterans and others. Our strategy, based on what has worked overseas, is to break the problem up - to focus on a cohort and in a place. Importantly, the strategy does not seek to count up to the goal of housing more and more people but to change the system of support services and count down to the goal of making homelessness rare, brief and a one-time occurrence. It is by focusing on this system change outcome and putting the individual needs of the people experiencing homelessness at the centre of that system can we actually end homelessness. More information about the strategy can be found in the AtoZ Methodology Fact Sheet on the AAEH website. 

The Campaign is also supported by a series of Allied Networks focused on particular sectors like health, business or veterans, places like states and territories, or service models like the Common Ground and Youth Foyer communities of practice. The AtoZ Campaign is inspired by the Built for Zero Campaigns in the USA and Canada and has sought to incorporate many of the lessons and insights from these and other efforts including the 100,000 Homes Campaign in the USA and the local equivalents - the Brisbane 500 Lives and the Perth 50 Lives campaigns. 

Homelessness is solvable. We know this because a growing number of communities around the world have demonstrated it. Through the collective effort of communities across Australia working together to better identify, triage, coordinate and advocate for the permanent housing and support real-time data shows is needed, we can end homelessness not just at a point in time, but to sustain this over time too. Ending homelessness starts with a shared goal, shared data, and a shared commitment - this is what the AtoZ Campaign seeks to support communities to build.