Homelessness committee opens dialogue through AI interviews

The homelessness committee in Maricopa County is discovering an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) approach has successfully increased engagement, re-energized and empowered people through dialogue created during interviews.

The Continuum of Care Regional Committee on Homelessness in Maricopa County, Arizona, developed a regional plan to end homelessness in 2002, with an updated version in 2005. When developing a new plan, they wanted to ensure achievements could be clearly measured and the plan to end homelessness was action-oriented.

“We wanted to come up with a plan that would really engage a much broader population than we had currently been working with and also at the same time we wanted to re-energize the providers and the people working in the field,” says Amy St. Peter, Maricopa Association of Governments human services manager.

The committee kicked off the AI process in January when it hosted a community workshop. The workshop looked at the successes of ending homelessness in the community.

In preparation for the workshop, members of the committee collaborated with Corporation for Positive Change consultant Amanda Trosten-Bloom to develop the questions for an interview guide.

The 70 workshop participants were a mix of non-profit service providers, elected officials, members from the cities and towns throughout the county, as well as clients and members from the business sector.

Participants were matched into improbable pairs — people who might not usually communicate with one another — to ask and answer the interview guide questions.

“The feedback that we’ve got on the process is that it is very unique,” says human services planner Brande Mead. “A lot of times people are really focused on the barriers and maybe things that aren’t working well, so it’s been a very powerful process to focus on these success stories.”

The stories that were gathered from these interviews developed the goals and actions for the committee’s regional plan based on the community successes.

To date, the committee has also completed 63 client interviews with people who are homeless or who have found permanent housing. For those who are homeless, the questions are looking to find out what is needed to end homelessness. People who have found housing are asked questions to explore what has created that success.

Mead says the AI process is different because it is empowering for everyone involved. People who are homeless are helping to provide answers and solutions to dramatically change the way homeless services in the region are operated, she says.

Councilman Greg Stanton is chair of the homelessness committee and says the AI approach worked very well for their process.

“(Appreciative Inquiry) puts the responsibility on those that participate to really go and seek information themselves, to go talk to people and not just participate in a passive way but to participate in a much more active way, I think that helps to provide perspective,” says Stanton.

The process is also beneficial to those conducting the interviews.

“When they are conducting the interviews they get to hear all the great things that have impacted (that person),” says Mead. “That can be very positive for people.”

The interviews are very helpful at the planning level to discover which services and activities have made a difference.

“Sometimes it is not what we would expect,” says Mead. “(We need to) take a look at how we are delivering services and make sure we are meeting the needs as homeless people see them, not just the needs as we might see them to be.”

The committee is now working to incorporate the information gathered into a new regional plan, to be completed this fall. St. Peter says they plan to have an implementation summit in January where they can engage the broader community of stakeholders and ensure the plan is being moved forward, implemented and measured. It will also be a chance to re-energize the group again, she says.

The Continuum of Care Regional Committee on Homelessness is part of the Maricopa Association of Governments, which has adopted an AI approach throughout different areas of the agency.


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