Build to Last

Back in 2006 an effort was started in my hometown to build a Human Services Campus. It is an ambitious undertaking that has had successes and setbacks, and while the effort is still in the concept stage almost four years later, it is important to remember that building things to last takes time and the process can’t be rushed. I will be devoting many posts to the Human Services Campus because we have and will continue to use all of our leadership skills not only to make our local site a reality but to turn our experience into a repeatable process that can be used wherever the need for a facility like this one exists.

Today I will provide some background on what a Human Services Campus is and why it is such a compelling idea. Future posts will cover the history of the effort, the tools that have been used to move it forward, and how the experience will be captured for use by others.

What is a Human Services Campus (HSC)?
Studies on those who use social service agencies to bridge the gap between their monetary resources and their physical needs consistently draw a couple of very interesting conclusions.

The first is that users of one service typically need two or three others as well. For example, someone who visits a food bank because that is the only way to ensure the family does not go hungry may also need help paying rent, or counseling for a child having difficulty in school, or job training, or help with a family member who has drug or alcohol dependency. The list, as you can imagine, goes on.

The second conclusion is that the referral network between agencies is not very good. Because this sector is so fluid, agencies go in and out of business very quickly. A referring agency can’t be expected to keep up with the status of all potential providers and their effectiveness, so referrals may be difficult.

That’s from the agency side. How about the client side? A perfectly good referral can go to waste if the clients can’t get where they need to go. Imagine having to visit three geographically dispersed social services providers using public transportation. Weekly. Good luck.

For these reasons, and many others we will explore in the coming weeks and months, a central location with a variety of human services agencies is a very good idea. The providers can get space to suit their needs at typically below market rents, and clients have a much easier time getting multiple needs satisfied on a single visit to the campus.

The effort to site such a facility in this community has looked to a model that is already in place in Redmond, Washington. The board and staff of The Family Resource Center have been very helpful in guiding the City of Issaquah and local community and non-profit leaders to see how we can turn our vision into reality.

When we first gathered these leaders together I was able to help keep the momentum going in my role as member of the Issaquah City Council. My term has since ended, but I’m very fortunate to have been offered a seat on the Family Resource Center board, where a committee now looks at how to replicate the Human Services Campus model with an emphasis on bringing the model to Issaquah.

Creating a repeatable process for creating such a facility is the core mission of this committee, and I look forward to sharing our work with you as we continue on our journey.