Institutional Work In Sustaining Collaborative Governance: Insights from Suburban Homeless Service Providers

Background

Addressing homelessness requires multifaceted solutions that require the efforts of a variety of institutional actors. Suburban homeless service providers (SHSPs), which receive less political attention than their urban and rural counterparts, may face particular challenges in advancing their work and legitimacy to funders and other sociopolitical actors. For these providers, cultivating partnerships within their Continuum of Care (CoC)—a HUD-mandated planning network that coordinates homeless funding/services under public-private partnerships—is one way to situate their work in a larger sociopolitical milieu and bolster the legitimacy of their work. Indeed, within these networks resources and power may be inequitably distributed among organizations resulting in value and goal conflicts, even as such diversity encourages innovation and organizational learning. We utilize the collaborative governance and institutional work literature to explore the day-to-day practices of CoC involvement for these organizations, asking: how do SHSPs manage their role within a state-mandated collaborative governance process?

Methods

This data comes from 25 semi-structured qualitative interviews and 30 hours of participation-observation of CoCs in three suburban US counties, chosen based on their variance in regards to political orientation, poverty levels and demographics. In analysis, the authors used the “twenty-first century” approach to flexible coding, which involves inductive and deductive coding strategies, leading to a codebook for analysis. Each interview was coded separately by two researchers in a four-person team in a process of “blind coding”. Researchers then examined codes and engaged in memo-writing related to COC participation and partnerships with local actors to identify themes.

Findings

While CoC participation is mandated for organizations receiving HUD funding, respondents described sustaining a process through which a wide swath of actors were involved in maintaining the collaborative governance structure. In discussing their CoC involvement, respondents described a process that was largely supportive, in some cases imbued with a sense of levity that fostered goodwill among actors. Through institutional work, the everyday practices of SHSPs employees, rather than formal structures, sustained the work of the CoC, which respondents noted was an effective coordinating structure to address homelessness and valuable for their work. Yet, challenges emerged around perceived issues of resource scarcity, lack of organizational visibility, and inequitable social dynamics. Moreover, suburban county CoCs are more decentralized than urban CoCs, considering the variety of entities (e.g., law enforcement, schools) with divergent values and goals. Nevertheless, SHSPs reiterated their trust in the partnerships that were sustained in the CoCs and continually worked to maintain the governance structure.

Conclusion

As the benefits and challenges of collaborative governance work are well-established in the literature, our paper uses the theory of institutional work to describe the quotidian mechanisms through which individuals sustain the CoC. This paper also examines how SHSPs use this mandated collaboration to address resource scarcity. While participation in the CoC is required for the majority of SHSPs receiving federal funding, the processes are sustained through the efforts of individuals who are tasked with building relationships, fostering trust, and creating governance processes to continue the success of the ongoing collaboration, despite encountering significant collaborative challenges.