Introducing PathForward™

There is no one solution to end homelessness. Every municipality and every community have their own specific needs. While our Pallet villages coupled with wraparound supportive services are a successful model, we understand there are other strategies to address the homelessness crisis. Working closely with cities across the country, we realize communities want to find the right solutions and know our expertise and learnings from deploying over 100 shelter villages could help them drive change. So, we’ve launched PathForward™ homelessness advisory services.  

Pallet’s PathForward provides support for cities to create customized solutions with defined goals and resources like funding roadmaps, implementation plans, policy research, capacity building, partnerships, project management and more. Our service uses data-backed strategies anchored by people with lived experience. Cities can work with Pallet in a variety of ways including long-term partnerships, special projects, and one-off advice. 

As mission-driven problem solvers, we see homelessness as a human-rights crisis necessitating urgent and bold action. PathForward uses wholistic strategies that dig into the intersectional root cause of homelessness. We identify realistic and data-backed approaches to make a meaningful difference.  

“Solving homelessness involves an entire ecosystem of support requiring city officials, service providers and advocates to work together,” says Amy King, CEO, and founder of Pallet. “We’ve supported countless cities addressing homelessness and we are thrilled to formalize our experience and expertise through Pallet’s PathForward to help even more communities, not just with shelter but also with a wholistic, results-driven response.” 

One of the cities we’ve worked with is Huntington, W. Va. The city was experiencing a homelessness crisis that was heavily impacted by the opioid epidemic, and a low-quality, declining housing supply that left city officials with limited solutions. Partnering with city leaders, we identified one of their highest priorities was a non-emergency response for people experiencing homelessness, mental health crisis, or other issues requiring alternative responses and de-escalation. Through the National League of Cities’ Capstone Challenge, PathForward supported Huntington with the implementation of the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT). The program launches in March 2023.  

“The City of Huntington worked with Pallet through the National League of Cities’ Capstone Challenge to address our challenges with homelessness,” says Huntington Mayor Steve Williams. “I have always found public-private partnerships to be a key component of success for local governments, and our partnership with Pallet was no exception. Their expansive insight, experience, and willingness to do deep dives into this complex issue were a critical reason why we were able to develop and launch a Crisis Intervention Team to assist the most vulnerable individuals of our population.” 

PathForward is backed by data and expertise–we’ve deployed over 100 transitional shelter villages across the U.S. with our lived experience workforce. Pallet has been working with cities since 2016 to provide solutions that are dignified, cost efficient, and effective in ending homelessness. Our team of experts and people with lived experience work with cities to advance compassionate and innovative strategies that fit their needs and empower communities.   

Notes King, “Cities can no longer wait to activate strategies that drive real and lasting change.”