Tool & Resource Design
Tool & Resource Design
HJC designs dynamic tools, resources, and learning materials that support skill-building, transparency, and shared understanding.
Our experience includes creating web-based platforms, facilitation guides, toolkits, and public and internal-facing materials that help communities access information and take action.
We prioritize accessibility and practical application to maximize community impact.
Client:
Project:
Housing Justice for Young People Under the Age of 18
Services:
Facilitation | Policy Design | Tool & Resource Design
Description:
HJC worked with stakeholders in Washington State for over three years to develop system and policy recommendations to address the housing and legal rights of young people under 18 experiencing homelessness. The original project engaged young people who had been served by a new intervention called Youth Engagement Teams (YET), as well as youth action boards in two counties and one that was statewide. This work led to the “Building a Better Future for Minors Experiencing a Housing Crisis in Washington State” report.
Following the report the Washington State legislature passed two bills offering limited legal protections and housing / services funding for young people under 18. HJC partnered with the state agency to engage young people in making implementation recommendations.
In early 2024 we worked with three youth consultants in Washington State to design and implement a system modeling workshop that can estimate the amount and types of housing and services needed to ensure all young people under 18 have access to what they need, resulting in the “Modeling for Housing Stability for Youth Under 18 in Washington State” report for the state’s Office of Homeless Youth. Our ongoing partners in the work have been Mockingbird Society and Legal Counsel for Youth and Children.
Client:
Office to Prevent & End Homelessness Illinois Department of Human Services
Project:
Plan to End Homelessness
Services:
Coaching | Facilitation | Strategy | Tool & Resource Design
Description:
HJC worked with senior leadership of the State of Illinois Office to Prevent and End Homelessness to develop the next two year plan to end homelessness. Areas of focus included:
Leadership Team Development and Alignment to improve team dynamics and culture of the recently expanded leadership team, and implement cohesion, governance, and accountability measures.
Framework Review and Strategy to facilitate assessment of options, addressing of anxieties around racial equity, course of action decision-making and adherence.
Engagement Process Design to develop a structured and cohesive engagement process to be utilized by the senior leadership team, and design an approach to ensure alignment and clear steps for the agencies being engaged.
HJC has taken big-picture concepts such
as transparency, fairness, and equity and translated them into meaningful action within the homelessness sector and local continuum of care.
By breaking these broad principles into practical, actionable strategies, HJC has helped move conversations into implementation.
Eugenia R. Olison
Office to Prevent & End Homelessness,
Illinois Dept. of Human Services
Client:
Project:
Chicago CoC Equity Action Plan & Impact Implementation
Services:
Coaching | Facilitation | Implementation Strategy | Tool & Resource Design
Description:
HJC worked with All Chicago and in partnership with CoC Impact Team (a workgroup of the Continuum of Care) to facilitate the co-design and implementation of a Racial Equity Action Plan based on the findings of a landscape analysis provided by Arc4 Justice.
The action plan provided an accountability structure for moving the work forward, including definition and consensus on goals and metrics, timelines and benchmarks; identification of key decision makers within the CoC; assessment of tools and resources needed; anticipating and troubleshooting bottlenecks and blindspots to build trust and transparency across teams.
HJC also worked with All Chicago to implement priority strategies identified in the action plan, including co-designing tools and resources, facilitation, and coaching.
Housing Justice Collective has partnered with our community to advance more equitable and just practices within the Chicago Homeless Response System.
Through their coaching, our community team examines the homeless response system with greater curiosity and accountability, identifying areas for improvement and pursuing necessary structural changes.
This work has challenged us and propelled us toward real change—not merely good intentions. HJC consistently encourages growth, grounding their approach in a shared commitment to making this work not only impactful, but irresistible.
Elizabeth Perez, All Chicago
Client:
Project:
Organizational Strategy & Development, Program
Building & Resourcing Support
Services:
Coaching | Facilitation | Policy Design | Strategy | Tool & Resource Design
Description:
HJC has worked alongside a team of young people with lived expertise, community partners, and funders for over three years to develop the youth-led intermediary called the
LA Emissary. Employing the full spectrum of HJC service offerings, we support LA Emissary’s advocacy and skill building initiatives, and collaborate to create the programs and structure to implement their theory of change and affect system transformation to better serve unhoused young people.
LA Emissary focus areas are Local Organizing & Training through the formation of the 8 regional teams of young people hosted by non-profits in every region of Los Angeles County, County-wide System Change Efforts to End Youth Homelessness through the Cross Systems Leadership Table, and Youth-led Grantmaking through the Youth and Young Adult Pooled Fund, a philanthropic pooled fund that has granted over $6 million dollars in LA County to housing and services and youth leadership programs.
LA Emissary has become a well-oiled machine with the support of Housing Justice Collective. They’ve opened doors we were ready to run through and equipped us with skills across facilitation, mediation, and grant management.
More than that, they listen, they care, and they prioritize our intentions. HJC has truly been the frame that holds our picture together.
La’Toya Cooper, LA Emissary
Client:
Project:
Learning Community Facilitation and Design & Implementation of Resource Website for Lived Experience System Partnerships
Services:
Facilitation | Implementation | Strategy | Tool & Resource Design
Description:
HJC worked with Lived Experience Grove to conduct a community-driven learning tool development program, and hosted a national convening of partners and legislators to share the results.
Our team created and launched a year-long Learning Community program with four communities across the country. This included facilitating monthly topic-driven all-community calls, as well as monthly community-specific coaching calls. The goal was to generate content for a web-based learning tool that can be used by any community to access relatable community examples, dynamic learning activities, and resources to facilitate learning. Eager to learn from one another, the all-community conversations led to a deeper and more robust outcome for each community.
Topics covered over the course of the year included:
Culture Shifts that lead to Equity
Vision Setting and Co-Design
Recruitment and Onboarding
Naming and Navigating Conflict
Compensation and Supports
Navigating the National Landscape
Power Sharing
Once the program completed, we convened over 50 national partners, as well as Minnesota representatives, for a three-day Lived Experience conference in Los Angeles. We presented the program and process, and launched the digital learning tool that was designed by members of the communities that will use them.
Their impact goes beyond local work. They have been intentional about connecting us to broader learning communities and helping build spaces like the Lived Experience Grove, where people with lived experience are not just present, but leading and shaping systems. Because of that, our work is more grounded,
more connected, and more effective.
LaQuita Love-Limo
Stable Housing is the Priority (SHIP)