Beyond Shelter is a non-profit organization founded in 1988 in response to increasing numbers of homeless families in Los Angeles and the need for a more comprehensive approach to serving them. Today, the mission of the agency is to develop systemic approaches to combat poverty and homelessness among families with children, and to enhance family economic security and well-being. Beyond Shelter accomplishes this mission through the following strategies: (1) responsive service delivery, (2) people-centered community development, and (3) the creation of knowledge for social change. 

(1) Responsive Service Delivery - Beyond Shelter's programs respond to the essential needs of homeless and low-income parents and children. Case management, affordable housing, employment, housing development, and neighborhood services programs enable families to access vital resources and services, including permanent, affordable housing, child care, jobs, and enrichment and educational activities for children and youth.

2) People-Centered Community Development - The agency's community development work is based upon the needs voiced by residents in low-income, inner city neighborhoods. Local residents understand and can best articulate community strengths and areas for improvement - to help them achieve improved social and economic well-being.

(3) The Creation of Knowledge for Social Change - Beyond Shelter's programs in Los Angeles provide a "laboratory" to test new and innovative approaches to combat family homelessness and poverty. Lessons learned are used to develop "how to" program manuals, training and workshop materials, and policy papers, to educate service providers, funders, government officials, and policymakers around the country about what makes programs effective.

In 1988, Beyond Shelter introduced an innovation in the field at the time - "Housing First" for homeless families (also known as "rapid re-housing"), which has since helped to transform both public policy and practice on a national scale. Through this new approach, rather than remain in shelters and transitional housing for months and sometimes years at a time, homeless families are assisted in (1) moving back into permanent housing as quickly as possible, and (2) then provided six months to one full year of individualized case management support to help them rebuild their lives (including jobs, childcare, and assistance in attaining improved social and economic well-being).

The methodology is based largely on the belief that vulnerable and at-risk homeless families are more responsive to interventions and social services support after they are in their own housing rather than still living in emergency shelters or transitional housing. It is also premised on the belief that housing is a basic human right. Over the past twenty years, more than 4,300 homeless families have participated successfully in the program in Los Angeles.

Beyond Shelter's "Housing First" Program has received both national and international recognition, including one of "25 U.S. Best Practices" presented at the 1996 United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, Habitat II, held in Istanbul, Turkey; one of "100 International Best Practices" chosen by the United Nations on Human Settlements for dissemination worldwide that same year; and one of 19 model programs in the Pew Partnership's national initiative, Wanted: Solutions for America, a systematic evaluation effort to document and disseminate successful strategies to building stronger communities, coordinated by Rutgers University's Center for Urban Policy Research in 2001.

With its development affiliate, Beyond Shelter Housing Development Corporation, Beyond Shelter also develops service-enriched, affordable housing in inner-city neighborhoods and, since the 1992 Civil Unrest, has been developing the Broadway South Neighborhood Revitalization Project in South Central Los Angeles, in response to entrenched, generational poverty and the need for improved access to housing and social services in the area.

Beyond Shelter's Institute for Research, Training & Technical Assistance provides consulting, training, policy papers and publications to other agencies and localities nationwide and works closely with numerous national advocacy organizations on the promotion of its key initiatives: Housing First/Rapid Re-Housing and Service-Enriched Housing.