Greer’s project increased One Roof’s capacity to serve youth and young adults who are experiencing homelessness. As the Homeless Continuum of Care for Central Alabama, One Roof coordinates 45+ partner agencies serving individuals who are homeless. Greer worked with these partner agencies and outside institutions—like the child welfare and justice systems—to streamline their prevention and intervention efforts. To do so, he organized a group of key stakeholders, called the Youth Homelessness Working Group, who are committed to meeting one-a-quarter to coordinate services; facilitated and strengthened One Roof’s Youth Action Council, a group of young adults with homelessness experience who advise One Roof leadership on youth homelessness issues; and designed, implemented, and wrote a Youth Homeless Needs Assessment uncovering what service gaps exist in Birmingham and what resources are available to fill those gaps.

As a result of the program:

• Greer completed 29 Youth Homelessness Surveys and 7 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders
• A Youth Homeless Needs Assessment Report was produced, including a quantitative and qualitative analysis of primary and secondary data (e.g., Census data, Homeless Management Information System data) not previously assembled specifically for youth
• A partnership between Youth Action Council (YAC) and another nonprofit, the Alaquest Collaborative for Education, was developed to strengthen engagement of the 3-4 consistent YAC Members

• A 10-15 member Youth Homelessness Working Group (YHWG) was convened with a calendar for ongoing meetings

Greer or another staff member of One Roof will continue facilitating the YHWG and YAC. Additionally, he will continue to operationalize some of the findings and recommendations from the Youth Homeless Needs Assessment, which One Roof plans to use as data for upcoming federal grants.

“Participating in the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship taught me many valuable lessons about professional life that can be distilled into three timeless idioms: “work harder, not smarter;” “don’t let perfect be the enemy of good;” and “many hands make light work.” As a health and human services employee, there will always be more work for me to do, so I have to be efficient, be satisfied that “good” is good enough, and rely on my teammates for assistance and support.”