Urban Triage is a Black-led CBO focusing on Black and other vulnerable populations in Madison, WI. Their systems alignment challenge is to transform cultures, institutions, and communities to ensure a humane future through innovative, human-centered housing, trauma recovery, and agricultural initiatives. To this end, grant funding will be used to hire a consultant to design a grant’s management system that is required to be in place for them to receive a $200,000 Youth Homelessness System Improvement (YHSI) Grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This already-awarded grant has been held up by HUD until Urban Triage has a grants management system in place. The objective of the YHSI grant is to:

• Improve the capacity of youth with lived experiences of homelessness to develop solutions to end youth homelessness;
• Establish partnerships between systems that work with youth at-risk of or experiencing homelessness;
• Create or improve processes to prioritize youth for housing and services based on the severity of their needs and on processes to connect youth to services and housing; and
• Improve data collection and use between systems that work with you at-risk of and experiencing homelessness.

The $10,000 Equity Capacity Building Grant will allow them to build the necessary grants management system, receive the YHSI grant, and pursue these goals.