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A five-year commitment · Durham, North Carolina

A city where homelessness is rare, and brief.

By June 2031, Durham will build a system that prevents homelessness, ends it quickly when it happens, and makes sure it does not return — for families, veterans, youth, and neighbors on the street. The problem is concentrated, knowable, and solvable.

See how it’s working Join the work
A Durham story · February 2026

A winter storm left ten families in hotel rooms with nowhere to go next. One month later, fifteen had moved into homes of their own.

The February 2026 sprintThe families’ own words to come, with their consent
A Durham story · Street outreach

No one has to find the system alone. Outreach goes to the encampment at 7 a.m. and starts the housing conversation there.

Street outreachNeighbors’ own words to come, with their consent
A Durham story · One year on

Move-in is the first step, not the last. A case manager stays for twelve months — until the rent, and the stability, are the household’s own.

The 12-month arcResidents’ own words to come, with their consent
First-person voices to come — only with consent
Read more stories
15families housed in 25 days — against a goal of 10, plus three more into shelter.
The Proof · February 2026

It isn’t a theory. It already happened here.

A winter storm pushed ten families into hotel rooms through Durham’s White Flag response. The family shelter was full. Without help, those families would have slipped into longer homelessness once the storm passed.

So Durham ran a sprint. Flexible payments cleared within one business day. Housing locators brought real units. Case managers kept the conversation on housing, not barriers. The city, the county, and providers met daily to clear stuck cases in hours.

The sprint didn’t invent anything new. It simply made every part of the system show up at the same time, for the same families, with a deadline. The question this framework answers is how to make that the way the system always works.

What “rare and brief” really means

Rare.

Few people enter homelessness each month — because prevention and cross-sector partners catch crises upstream, before they reach the street.

Brief.

Those who do become homeless exit quickly — into housing within weeks, not months, with support for the year that follows so it holds.

“

Functional zero isn’t zero on any given night. It’s a system condition in which the number of people experiencing homelessness is consistently fewer than the number the system can house each month.

When people experiencing homelessness stays below people housed each month, homelessness becomes a temporary disruption people recover from — not a way of life.
The Journey to 2031

A path to functional zero, one population at a time.

Every year carries a concrete reduction target, tracked monthly from the by-name list and published for everyone to see. Choose a population to follow its path.

Families

Annual reduction target Functional zero reached Sustaining the condition
Five lanes of work, moving together

None of it works alone. All of it works together.

How the work gets done

Six functions, sequenced around the same people, at the same time.

Each has its own discipline — but they’re built to behave as one system, the way they did in February.

What success looks like

The city this is designed to build, by June 2031.

Not an abstraction — a set of everyday experiences that become ordinary when the system works the way February showed it can.

01
A resident in a housing crisis

Reached within days of becoming unsheltered or calling for help — with a clear, predictable path to housing instead of a waitlist. They move in within weeks, not months, with case management focused on staying housed for the year that follows.

02
A landlord weighing the risk

Knows the rent will arrive on time and in full each month, that a real person answers the phone when something goes wrong, and that the financial risk of saying yes is shared, not absorbed alone.

03
A provider doing the work

Knows their work is part of a coordinated effort, not a constellation of disconnected programs — that the data and tools they need are accurate, and the barriers they surface get cleared at the system level, not worked around case by case.

Voices that guide the work
The most important measure of whether this framework works is whether it works for the people it is built to serve.
— People with lived experience of homelessness shape Durham’s system design, decisions, and accountability through the Lived Experience Advisory Group.
Who carries the work

It takes a coalition — and a backbone to hold it together.

No single agency can make homelessness rare and brief. Durham’s framework names its partners, the tables that govern and coordinate the work, the communities it learned from, and the one agency responsible for keeping it all moving.

Anchor partners

Cross-sector institutions investing money, expertise, and credibility in the goal.

Health & university

Duke University & Duke Health

An anchor institution lending investment, data partnership, and the weight of Durham’s largest employer.

Behavioral health

Alliance Health

The behavioral-health and substance-use partner for neighbors with complex care needs.

Philanthropy

A.J. Fletcher Foundation

An anchor of the $5M private community investment campaign behind Year 1.

Upstream prevention

Durham County

Co-investor upstream — DSS, behavioral health, prevention, and justice diversion.

National network

Community Solutions · Built for Zero

Technical assistance and the methodology calibrated against 140+ communities.

Your organization

A seat is open

The framework is built to add partners. Find your place →

The tables that govern & coordinate

Distinct bodies, each doing only what it can do — strategic direction, HUD-funded governance, system alignment, frontline operations, and lived expertise.

Champions Table CoC Governing Board Executive Table Lived Experience Advisory Group Improvement Teams Communities of Practice

Learning from 140+ communities

Durham didn’t build this alone. As a Built for Zero community, it learns directly from peer cities and a national network that has shown homelessness is solvable when a community decides to solve it.

AtlantaCharlotteChicagoCincinnatiDallasDenverDetroitGreensboroGulf Coast, MSJacksonvilleMinneapolis / HennepinNashvilleNew York CityNewarkPortlandRaleighSacramentoSan DiegoSan FranciscoHartfordSeattle / King County

And one backbone to hold it together

A community effort this large needs a clear answer to “who’s actually responsible?”

The backbone agency

The Durham Community Safety Department coordinates the whole effort.

It leads day-to-day operations, manages communications, convenes the teams and tables, and carries the City’s Continuum of Care Lead Agency function — the structural center that keeps every part moving around the same households.

Day-to-day backboneCommunity Safety Dept.
Implementation partnerDurham County
HUD-funded governanceCoC Governing Board
From July 1, 2026Succeeds HSAC
How to get involved

This belongs to Durham. That includes you.

Ending homelessness isn’t a government program you watch from the outside — it’s a community effort with a place for everyone. Find yours below.

I want to help as a…
i.

Property owners

Rent to a household exiting homelessness. Rent arrives on time and in full, a real person answers the phone, and the financial risk is shared — not yours alone.

Join the landlord network
ii.

Funders & philanthropy

Contribute to the $5M community investment campaign, or align grants to the framework’s populations and operational functions — the money that moves at the speed of a family’s opportunity.

Back the community campaign
iii.

People with lived experience

Join the Lived Experience Advisory Group and shape system design, decisions, and accountability — the most important measure of whether this framework works for the people it’s built to serve.

Shape the system
iv.

Provider agencies

Participate in case conferencing, the Executive Table, and Communities of Practice — and help turn the by-name list into one meaningful step for every neighbor, every week.

Join the tables
v.

Sector leaders

Champion the work through the Champions Table — using your authority, networks, and access to resources to clear the barriers that no single agency can move alone.

Become a Champion
vi.

Residents & neighbors

Champion this work to your friends and family, contribute to the Flexible Housing Assistance Fund, and take part in the public conversation about what kind of city Durham is becoming.

Add your voice

Money that moves at the speed of a family’s opportunity needs people behind it.

A $5 million private community investment campaign anchors Year 1 — alongside the City, the County, Duke, Alliance Health, and the A.J. Fletcher Foundation. The next commitment could be yours.

Contribute to the Fund See where it goes

Watch the number move.

Get the monthly public dashboard and concrete ways to plug in — sprint results, landlords onboarded, families housed. No spin, just progress.

Thank you — you’re on the list. Watch for the next monthly dashboard.
Read the plan yourself

The full Framework, and everything behind it.

Download the complete Strategic Framework, its companion, and the one-page briefs that detail each operational approach.

Strategic Framework to Make Homelessness Rare & BriefThe complete five-year plan · 2026–2031 Companion — Strategy Lanes, Milestones & the Path to 2031The operational companion to the Framework

One-page briefs

Case ConferencingFrom “my clients” to “our clients” Flexible Housing AssistanceMoney at the speed of opportunity Landlord EngagementBuilding the unit pipeline Housing Stabilization Case ManagementThe 12-month CTI arc Housing SprintsMaking the system act like a system Our Approach to DataThe by-name list as operational truth Implementation StructureHow Durham organizes for five years Cities We Learned FromThe Built for Zero network