Rosanne Haggerty opened Common Ground in 1990; it has become one of the nation’s most successful builders of insightfully designed housing, with supportive services for the formerly homeless. Ten years ago, she founded the nonprofit Community Solutions and began to show how homelessness is a solvable problem using her organization’s systematic, data-driven approach (RECORD, March 2013 and October 2018). One component of the organization is Built for Zero, a network of 89 communities pledged to end homelessness by aligning government agencies, policies, and mission-driven nonprofits so that there is a clear path and a community-wide commitment “to bringing every person home.”
Haggerty is a former MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” recipient; last April, the Foundation dramatically upped the ante by awarding Community Solutions the extraordinary sum of $100 million through its 100&Change program to advance the goal of ending homelessness in participating communities in five years. RECORD contributing editor James Russell spoke to Haggerty about the potential of such a grant, and of her work now as the pandemic threatens mass evictions.
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