Regional leaders from across the Quad Cities gathered on Wednesday, April 29 for a first-of-its-kind, bi-state working session focused on boosting progress to reduce unsheltered homelessness.
The event at the RiverCenter included about 100 public and private-sector leaders from across five major cities and both counties in the region, reflecting a shared commitment to addressing the issue.
Convened by the Quad Cities Community Foundation and Downtown Davenport Partnership, in collaboration with regional partners, the effort over two full days Wednesday and Thursday is facilitated by Clutch Consulting Group, a nationally recognized firm that partners with communities to move beyond planning into coordinated action on homelessness.
The session helped participants establish a shared regional goal, identify gaps and opportunities, and build momentum toward a more aligned, bi-state approach.
The session comes at a critical moment for the region, as communities across both states face the growing challenge of unsheltered homelessness, and Project NOW recently ended its operation of a Moline temporary winter shelter (in mid-April) that served 302 people over 12 weeks.
“Too many of our neighbors are experiencing homelessness and sleeping unsheltered,” said Sue Hafkemeyer, president and CEO of the Quad Cities Community Foundation. “This is an opportunity for our region to come together and begin building a path forward.”
“At the Quad Cities Community Foundation, we work with thousands of donors, nonprofits and businesses across our bi-state region. And I see every day how much people care about our community. And I know that unsheltered homelessness is an increasing concern and a priority for many of us,” she said Wednesday. “We're proud to be involved with the individuals and organizations who are here today, many who have worked tirelessly on this challenge for years.
“And it's time we organized effectively behind them to support and expand their effort,” Hafkemeyer said. “Their work and perspective were central to what we accomplished today. What stood out to me, though, was that throughout the sessions, there was truly a level of alignment. Not just alignment, but passion for making change. In doing this work and getting the support that we need to move this work forward, there was a broad recognition that this is a priority for us.
“Even though there were some challenging conversations, I saw a clear willingness to work together differently to make progress,” she said. “Today, we established a shared direction, identifying practical near-term opportunities and beginning to align how the work moves forward across jurisdictions and sectors. This is just a starting point. The input from today will be synthesized into a clear path forward, and the community will hear more in June about the next steps.”
“Limited affordable housing is a huge chunk of the problem because people aren't moving and there isn't as much accessibility as you would think there would be,” she said. “So that's one of the issues we have to address as a foundation.”
This past December, the Community Foundation announced that the Quad Cities Housing Council (QCHC) will receive a Transformation Grant ($300,000 over three years), in support of the region’s first large-scale, multi-agency affordable housing development initiative.
The $300,000 grant is the largest grant the foundation awards each year. This year’s grant supports a response to one of the region’s most urgent challenges: advancing a solution to the affordable housing crisis, involving several partners.
Led by the QCHC, the collaboration brings together Vera French Housing Corporation, Ecumenical Housing Development Group, Habitat for Humanity of the Quad Cities, Humility Homes and Services, and Rejuvenate Housing. Each organization will develop units (totaling 25) within the Davenport project area—spanning Marquette to Harrison and Locust to 4th Street—using land and properties they already own.
Vera French also just last Friday cut the ribbon in Davenport for Carol’s Village Gardens, a four-story, $10-million affordable rental housing complex. A complex combination of public and private funds – anchored by $7 million in Iowa low-income housing tax credits – made the Vera French project at 820 Harrison Street possible, built over a year and a half by Davenport-based Russell Construction.
Fittingly located next to the Vera French Community Mental Health Center’s Carol Center, the nonprofit agency’s 30-unit complex is comprised of six supportive units for people moving from homelessness; four two-bedroom apartments and 20 one-bedroom units, all with washer and dryer, microwave and dishwasher.
“I think the biggest thing, though, that came out of today was the fact that there's so much interest in collaboration regionally, and that's going to be the driver that brings whatever we decide home,” Hafkemeyer said. “Everybody's on the same page governmentally, private-sector wise, and there's a willingness to fund things.”
“This is not a one-time event or a final answer,” said Kyle Carter, executive director of the Downtown Davenport Partnership. “It’s a working session focused on generating real ideas and moving them forward. What happens here will help guide the next phase of this work.”
Participants (who will continue meeting all day Thursday, April 30) focused on regional alignment and momentum-building, and a smaller, future planning session will work to translate ideas into action. While participation in the working session was limited to regional stakeholders and advocates, organizers note that additional opportunities for broader public engagement with the information gathered and priorities set will follow.
“Our communities are asking for organizations to come together across state lines and sectors,” said Kelly Thompson, the Community Foundation’s vice president of strategic initiatives. “Our region has all the ingredients. This is the first step toward bringing them all together.”
Working on the issue for years
Mandy Chapman Semple, managing partner for Houston-based Clutch Consulting, said she has almost two decades of experience working with homeless services.
“We're delighted to have been invited to facilitate, to participate, and to bring our national expertise to bear in this region,” she said Wednesday. “It was an incredibly encouraging day seeing a room full of leaders from two different states, multiple counties, multiple city jurisdictions come together and really recognize that responding to unsheltered homelessness and the issue of homelessness in general is in fact a regional issue.
“And requires the entire region to lock arms and work to support each other,” she said. “It was incredibly powerful to see the provider network who are often serving all of those jurisdictions or multiple jurisdictions recognize the value in each other, to recognize the opportunity to find and leverage each other's strengths, but to also be realistic about some of the constraints that this very unique and complex region represents.
“And so we didn't shy away from those realities. We tackled them head on and recognized that we may not be able to find all of the answers today, that we may not find perfection in the solution, but that we can begin to move incrementally toward the kind of progress that both the public expects and individuals who are experiencing some of their worst days deserve kind of the response that this community is interested in providing,” Semple said.
“It was a powerful day of coalescence. Not necessarily complete consensus or complete clarity, but a strong understanding that there's enough of a foundation to move forward together and that there are plenty of opportunities in front of us,” she said.
Others across the country are struggling with these issues, and “they're finding ways forward and that we all don't need to reinvent the wheel, but in fact, we can benefit from each other's learnings and then work within our own unique capacities, within our own jurisdictions to advance, to enhance our collective understanding and also begin to move the needle locally,” Semple said.
“I'm really proud to say that that was absolutely spirit in the room today," she added. "We're excited that we're going into additional sessions tomorrow. We're excited about the reports that will. Will be released later that really represents all of that hard work and all of the perspectives from the various jurisdictions that participated.”
Davenport Ald. Matt Lienen said every Wednesday after City Council, he goes on home north on Main Street and sees unacceptable conditions of some buildings residents have to live in.
“This is Main Street, Davenport, Iowa, 1,000 feet from City Hall. And that's unacceptable,” he said. “Acknowledging there is a problem is often the first step in solving the problem. The city of Davenport looks forward to collaborative efforts and developing and implementing a plan to deal with this issue. Our residents deserve that.”
Looking at the region differently
Project NOW president/CEO Rev. Dwight Ford said the region must see itself differently, and see possibilities in a new light, with different partners working toward the same goal.
“I believe this is a new approach to confront an old challenge or persistent challenge. Housing, as you know, is the number one challenge not just of our region, but of the nation,” he said.
“If we start off with the idea that we're going to bring homelessness to functional zero, where it's brief, rare and non-reoccurring, essentially to end homelessness, then that's something that I believe would be a worthwhile effort and worth the investment that it's going to take,” Ford said.
“Housing is the anchor to all other opportunities….A tree grows in two different directions at the same time. And I believe this work models that we have to go deep enough to be rooted in the experience, the work that is already being done, the regional efforts that have given us insight to how to do this in this area as well.
“But we also have to keep reaching upward. We have to break through the ground and start reaching for the sky,” he said. “Anything less will be something that falls far short of what we envision that we can be as a region. So as a service provider and in one way as a funder through the continuum, I'm excited about today. I'm hopeful and I use hope as a level of expectation because what is expected also requires work.”
“I just love the fact that we're actually talking about homelessness and saying it out loud and then thinking about what resources need to be on the table,” Ford said later Wednesday. “Generally, homelessness is an afterthought. And we talk education, health care and economic opportunity. None of those are wrong. But it's the fact that we are putting our finger on the pulse and say we have unhoused individuals and families.
“How can we impact those individuals that are most vulnerable to life itself or the environment?” he asked. “So I believe that the overall thrust of being able to name the thing that we are actually trying to confront gives us a great chance. The idea of confrontation means that we face it rather than just bemoan it, that we face it with solutions rather than complain about it.”
“I believe that our best ideas come from being in conversation with each other and have an open conversation,” Ford said of finding the next winter shelter building. “If there were relationships where there was a building unoccupied, but will see value in the work that we're doing for the future business that will come in or for the overall economic area. Many of the people we're serving right now, they're not able to contribute to society in ways that they would hope and would one day future in the future be able to.”
“We had a lot of really smart people in the room, really smart people working together,” said Ashley Velez-Hagler, CEO of Humility Homes and Services.
"We've been doing this, but it's just coming together with the business community that impacts it, the local government, and coming up with a plan.”
She learned from the consultant that 88% of the people that are coming into the system now in the Quad Cities are new to homelessness. “We didn't even realize that as a homeless service provider, as we've seen so much and targeted so much of that other 12% that have been filtering in there,” Velez-Hagler said.
“We've got to come up with a plan, and we're on the right track with the best practices laid out today for us to come together.”
“It is going to take a village to solve this problem,” said Carter, the DDP executive director. “It is no one entity, no one organization, no one individual is capable of bringing the solutions to bear that are necessary for this. This is the definition of a regional challenge and it will require a regional solution,” he said.
“We're just so incredibly grateful to see five cities, both counties, all the different players at the same place at the same time, determined to get somewhere and have an actual concrete solution,” Carter said. They aim to distill discussions into two or three goals they can meet within 6 to 12 months, including a Project NOW temporary winter shelter to open on Dec. 1, 2026.
“I think one of the light bulb moments for me is the recognition that the housing system and the solutions necessary for it are parallel but different than the emergency that is on-street homelessness,” Carter said. “Mandy did a wonderful job today of illustrating that to me, who I would consider a layman and many ways in this world of treat an emergency like an emergency, the response needs to feel like an emergent response. It needs to have that urgency.”
“Housing, on the other hand, is extraordinarily expensive and time consuming and requires construction and zoning and planning,” he said. “We’re always fighting this double-edged sort of the timeline of housing versus the immediacy of the crisis in front of us on the street. I think what we're learning is that we can in fact walk and chew gum at the same time and that we can also have different solutions for different problems.
“There's a totally different methodology that's going to be needed just to tackle housing than the emergent problem on the street,” Carter added. “And it's okay to recognize that those have different funding, different solutions, different players. And so as I learned more about this, it's just been wonderful to have that light bulb go off for me that we need to change the dialogue. We need to change how we talk about what success looks like and I'm eager to work with the other professionals in this space tomorrow to define more concretely what success looks like.”
The collaboration expects to produce a report in June that will detail its findings, challenges and goals, both short-term and long-term.
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