Now what?

I see so many great ideas thrown around, and some even fully developed into a a new program designed to provide services to those in the community. But what happens when the program isn't really what the community needed? How to we measure a program's efffectiveness? A county near where I live claims to not have a homeless problem. This is because there isn't a single homeless shelter in the county. There are many homeless camps and tent cities in the county, and panhandlers on almost every corner of the major intersections, but they don't have a homeless problem? Many people think it's a lack of housing, asking why churches can't give them a place to stay, or why we can't use this vacant building or that one to provide a place to sleep. During a real bad cold spell other areas of the metro area started opening up hotels and convention centers to house those living on the streets. The problem is then you need someone to provide security, and volunteers to clean rooms and or bring food to the people. Food, mental health services, healthcare, and identification are all reasons why people are on the street. It's not just about money or having a place to sleep. Many people don't want the help or are not willing to go through the hoops required to get services. So are they wasting money paying for hotels or to have the convention center open? How can we test or evaluate to see if that is even helping or are we enabling individuals to continue living on the street. Sometimes people who have zero experience in a situation but a lot of education decide to enact laws or develop programs to help. That's great if they have done the research and truly figured out what will help those involved. Have they spent time working directly with the people they are wanting to help? Once the project has been put in place how do we evaluate it to see if it's working to do what we want it to do. It helps if we set measurable goals in place before we start. In my food pantry I can keep track of how many families are coming through, but how do I evaluate if what we are doing is helping? It's not something I thought about until recently, but I want to be more than just giving out food. I want to know what foods they truly need, I want to know if they prefer the current drive up method or would prefer to revert back to the ways of pre COVID, I want to know what else can we do to lift them up out of this season in life or to push through easier. I need to ask qualitative questions. Quantitative wouldn't be nearly as helpful. I have to build a rapport with the clients and get to know them well. Just because the number of families increase does not mean I'm being effective. Especially if food is going to waste. Before we can grow our program bigger, adding more resources than we currently have I need to figure out if what we are doing is making a difference, and if not how can we change it to make an impact.