DES MOINES, Iowa — Homeward Iowa is developing a five-year plan to address the needs of individuals and families experiencing homelessness, and they want the community’s input.

Homeward Iowa works to develop and implement plans that will address homelessness concerns and help establish opportunities for those facing homelessness to succeed.

On Thursday Homeward held their second summit, which invited members of the community to come and hear their plans and then provide their own input.

“Folks are concerned about homelessness within our community and they really want to work together to create new solutions and to support current solutions as they move forward to help with folks addressing and finding stability and housing,” said Angie Arthur the executive director of Homeward.

Housing Innovations Matt White outlined the plan and gave a detailed account of strategies and how they would work to implement strategies and struggles they may face.

After the presentation the participants were invited to mark sections of the plan with stickers indicating good, bad, or needs work. They were also able to leave ideas on sticky notes and brainstorm ideas with Homeward members.

David Drake, a physiatrist and volunteer at Joppa, works with the homeless frequently and wanted to see if he had any insight that Homeward could use in their plans.

“There are all sorts of community organizations and faith organizations who are involved in this process of trying to eliminate homelessness in our community, to try to help people who are homeless, to get resources,” said Drake.

With so many small groups working towards the same goal in different ways, Drake wonders how this whole process will come together.

“Who is going to be overseeing this process? How is this going to work,” said Drake. “How are all these different organizations or resources going to work together? I think is going to be very important.”

Anish and Hayat are part of the UVoice Youth Philanthropy Board and came to learn more about homelessness.

“It’s really important as a youth to be involved within our community,” said Hayat. “So, coming here and learning more about homelessness is just a really great opportunity for us.”

UVoice is currently working on their own project related to homelessness and the board is glad to have organizations like Homeward to lead the way.

“We are hosting a community needs assessments ourselves, so we’re doing a survey in a community cafe,” said Anisha. “So, this gave us a lot of ideas of ways that we can incorporate community members and even do activities in our board as well.”

UVoice is looking forward to the implementations of the homelessness plan, but it’s wary of roadblocks along the way.

“I am very excited to see what will come from this,” said Hayat. “The only concern I have is if we receive pushback from the state from any of these implementations.”

Executive Director Arthur says the events have been very successful and Homeward is happy to have so many people who are showing up to give their input and ideas.

“We’re excited to continue to gain input from folks in the community and talk about the important work that we’re doing. What’s also been reinforced is just the need for collaboration, and people’s willingness to collaborate together to create and support solutions to address homelessness in our community.”

Homeward plans to begin implementing part of their five-year plan in March.