Bringing It All Together

Moving towards integration entails examination of the primary objective, the systems involved, the target population of clients, development of an integration strategy and activities, a timeline, a list of participant organizations, regional scope and client impact, to name a few of the variables. [...] The best way to think about integration is to picture a network and nodes of activity, interests, people and resources as being parts of all the systems that provide services to the homeless. [...] The poor, the homeless, the mentally ill and other marginalized people are the victims of “gaps in the social safety net”: they “fall through the cracks”. [...] The fragmentation and duplication of supports and services, complicated by confusing and ever-changing criteria, make access to the right help at the right time one of the most cited examples of systems failures by those with lived experience, service providers, researchers and policy-makers. [...] Integration as a discourse in public policy and academic literature gained popularity during the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in the U. S., on the heels of structural changes to governmental approaches to service delivery and the emergence of non-profit organizations as contracted delivery agents on the state’s behalf (Randolph, 1995a; Rowe, Hoge and Fisk, 1998a).