Government White PP Assignment

Small groups of students will write a "white paper" that uses the academic knowledge and theory they learned throughout the semester on interagency collaboration and apply it to a real-world "collaboration issue" that the Memphis Community Alliance for the Homeless (CAFTH) and the Memphis Continuum of Care (CoC) are facing. The paper will be targeted to CAFTH leadership and structured to provide suggestions/recommendations around design/organization, deliberation/decision-making, and implementation/evaluation barriers and potential solutions for that particular issue.  The goal is to shed light on issues/considerations that have not yet been discovered by CAFTH in their planning for these issues, and a focus on what leadership can do to address the issue is imperative.

Groups are able to select one of the two following "collaboration issues" to address in their white papers:

1) The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is strongly encouraging Continuums of Care (CoCs) to designate an organization within their CoC to become a unified funding agency (UAF). This will have profound administrative and conceptual impacts on the CoC and the organizations within it. CAFTH is considering becoming a HUD-designated unified funding agency. What are the implications for CAFTH, the consortium/CoC, and other organizations in the consortium? 

2) The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is increasingly steering Continuums of Care (CoCs) to use systems modelling/mapping and systems performance measures in CoCs to inform policy & practice. CAFTH is considering what and how to implement and how to best work with their CoC partners, and other homeless service providers that aren't in the CoC (e.g., private homeless shelters), to do so. What are the implications for CATH, the consortium/CoC, other organizations in the consortium, and other homeless service providers? 

The papers must provide a brief background of the issue, address the challenges/issues/barriers to implementation, and present possible solutions to the challenges. The paper should rely on course readings (as well as other research) to inform each part of the paper (e.g., solutions should be based in research). The papers can focus broadly but apply to the Memphis CoC context as much as possible.

The papers should be 2,500-3,000 words excluding title page, references, and appendices. It should also include a roughly 250-500 word Executive Summary.