We Work to:

  • Promote community-wide strategies and plans to prevent and end homelessness

  • Provide coordination among the numerous local organizations and initiatives that serve the homeless population

  • Manage the CoC’s single, comprehensive grant application to HUD for McKinney-Vento funding which includes Continuum of Care funds and State Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) funds.

The St. Louis City Continuum of Care is a membership organization comprised of more than 100 organizations and individuals from the private and public sector who work in partnership to prevent and end homelessness in the City of St. Louis.

Mandated by the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the CoC strategizes and plans a coordinated, comprehensive approach to providing housing and services for people in danger of becoming homeless or experiencing homelessness.

Our Mission

The City of St. Louis Continuum of Care engages, aligns, and unites the community to end homelessness and ensure safe and supportive housing for all.

Our Vision

The St. Louis City Continuum of Care leads effective partnerships that prevent and end homelessness so that immediate resources are available, and everyone has a place to call home.

We Believe

…that including all voices in our work is necessary to shape solutions that are grounded in individual rights, shaped by our pursuit of equity, acknowledging our own bias, and made stronger through our collaboration.

This means that persons with lived experience are central to how the community designs service delivery and the system itself represents the diversity of the community not just in demographics, but in culture, opinion, and experience. This means that services and the system of care must embrace the intrinsic value of each person regardless of history, experience, or circumstance.

Furthermore, given the inequities experienced by marginalized groups such as people of color, the system of care and services must not discriminate in access or equity of services.

…that including all voices in our work is necessary to shape solutions that are grounded in individual rights, shaped by our pursuit of equity, acknowledging our own bias, and made stronger through our collaboration.

This means that success in the implementation of meaningful solutions is a product of our partnerships and that ending homelessness is possible. The community embraces new ideas, methods, and products in the pursuit of addressing homelessness.

…when persons in need seek our care, they will experience compassion, dignity, and choice. Their path through our homeless response system will be centered on their individual needs, empowered by our person-centered, trauma informed, housing first coordination of care.

This means that:

  • Barriers to services are removed so that people with complex and co-occurring issues can be quickly identified and have rapid access to the services they need;

  • There are no housing readiness requirements for services;

  • There is self-determination and client choice;

  • There is a recovery-orientation to service delivery;

  • Individualized and client directed supports are offered; and,

  • Social and community integration is a goal of service delivery.

…that we are the stewards of an accountable system of care and will openly and transparently utilize data as evidence to inform, respond, and continuously improve.

This means that there is trust between the community, service providers, local government, and the Continuum of Care leaders and members. It also means that there is transparency in decision making, service delivery, outputs, outcomes, and data. There is a desire for mutual accountability across parties involved in homelessness in St. Louis, with a focus on results. Not every new idea, method or product is going to work out as planned, and the community believes that taking risks and failing is part of the process of improving.