What’s Next

Elevated Denver’s vision for the Hub and what comes after the pilot

The Community Resource Connection Hub has demonstrated meaningful impact during its pilot year and Johnna Flood, CEO and Co-Founder of Elevated Denver, envisions significant growth for the Hub model moving forward. At its core, the Hub was designed as a preventative model intended to catch individuals before they fall into homelessness or when they are newly unhoused, and to help them find stability through intentional connection to resources and compassionate, one-on-one problem solving. With the pilot Hub proving the effectiveness of a resource connection model staffed by experts with lived experience, the focus now turns to sustainability and growth.

Without the Hub, the community would lose a trusted, local space that connects people to food, resources, relationships, and opportunity. More families would face greater barriers to support, services would be more fragmented, and there would be fewer culturally responsive, community-driven spaces where residents can build connection, voice, and long-term stability. — A community partner

Sustainability and Growth

Expansion

Looking ahead, the greatest opportunity for growth is the expansion of the Hub model throughout neighborhoods where individuals are commonly facing rising housing costs and financial insecurity. The need for this type of resource connection model far exceeds what a single Hub can serve. Additional Hubs would ideally be embedded in a trusted community space, staffed by compassionate individuals with local knowledge and lived expertise, and rooted in the same human-centered, accessible approach that has contributed to the current Hub’s success. Expansion would also deepen the network of available and vetted resources, allowing the Hub to connect more people to hyperlocal resources.

“I think this could help anybody… It would help to have more Hubs in other neighborhoods to help individuals get local resources.”

— Client, follow-up interview

Institutional Home

While Elevated Denver currently acts as the parent organization for the Hub, the long-term intent is for the Hub to find a sustainable and aligned home within a local and easily accessible community-based organization. This could look like a direct service agency, a library, or another trusted, community-facing agency.

Funding

This pilot was made possible by forward-thinking investors who were willing to take a chance on a community-driven solution. The pilot data shows that the Hub is a low-cost, high-impact model, and demonstrates the value of innovative, prevention-focused approaches. Sustaining the Hub will require funders who recognize that the return on early intervention often appears elsewhere in the system, in reduced use of shelters, emergency services, and crisis care, and who are willing to resource it accordingly. Clients see the gap too:

“What would make you guys more helpful is if you had some funds, instead of directing people to where the funds are. With the compassion you have here, everyone who needed help would get some.”

— Client, follow-up interview

Continuous Learning and Growth

Continuous learning and evaluation will remain a critical part of the Hub’s implementation going forward. With additional investment, the Hub will be better positioned to track long-term outcomes for clients. As relationships deepen with community partners, staff will ideally have access to data that provides a broader picture of clients’ whole-system experience, meaning they will be able to track whether individuals were able to access the resources they needed and how their situation evolved over time. Ultimately, this level of data collection and analysis will allow the community to better understand and invest in the protective factors that contribute to long-term stability.

Thinking About Building a Hub?

To facilitate expansion of the Hub model, Elevated Denver is able to provide technical assistance to communities interested in building their own Community Resource Connection Hub. Elevated Denver is working to create a guide that illustrates how to replicate the model while ensuring each Hub is designed, owned, and operated by the community it serves. Below are some insights and learnings that are foundational to the success of future Hubs. For questions about replicating the Hub model, contact info@elevateddenver.co.

  • Start with community. The purpose of the Collaboratory process that produced the Hub was three-fold: understand the problem, design a solution, and build the community trust that makes the Hub work.
  • Hire compassionate staff with lived experience and community relationships.
  • Build the data collection process before launch and engage staff and the data team in regular discussions of results, learnings, and challenges.
  • Find a funding partner who values innovative, upstream solutions and understands the timeline for prevention and evaluation.

Learn More

This evaluation was conducted by Omni Institute in partnership with Elevated Denver. For questions about replicating the Hub model, contact info@elevateddenver.co.