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The Diversion Initiative
Building a coordinated homelessness response together. A pilot to help neighbors resolve housing crises safely, before they ever reach a shelter door.
What is diversion?
Diversion is a housing problem-solving conversation. It helps people find safe, immediate alternatives to shelter whenever it's appropriate to do so, preserving shelter capacity for those most at risk and helping families resolve their housing crises more quickly and with greater self-determination.
The initiative
By aligning stategies and working together, we believe we can strengthen our community's homelessness response system through a new, data-informed Diversion Initiative.
ChangeLine, in partnership with the State of Colorado and DOLA, created this pilot to test, study, and evaluate diversion best practices to measurably reduce the number of people entering the homelessness response system across the Pikes Peak region.
Real support for people doing the work.
By joining the initative, you’ll receive:
Strategies & techniques
You’ll learn data-informed strategies and engagement techniques to help clients find safe alternatives to shelter.
Guidance & tools
You’ll get unlimited access to our extensive Diversion Toolkit, vital resources, and ongoing technical and data support.
A shared approach
You’ll receive industry support through coordinated trainings and regular check-ins that align efforts across every agency.
Better outcomes
You’ll help families and individuals resolve housing crises safely, outside of shelter whenever possible.
Our goal
Fundamentally shift the landscape of homelessness in our community
By transforming continuum-of-care systems, programs, and outcomes and building one shared, community-wide language for diversion.
Clear expectations, on both sides.
How the partnership works
Anyone can take part in the pilot, and everyone who does makes the same two commitments: practice diversion and document the data. Here's what ChangeLine provides, and what we ask of every participant.
CHANGELINE PROVIDES
All that you need to succeed
Check-ins & peer learning
All-agency sessions to share wins and challenges and review data, plus optional agency-specific check-ins on request.
Data reporting
Regular organization and community-level diversion data, so you can see how your work connects to broader system trends.
HMIS technical assistance
Direct support on documenting diversion conversations and outcomes, plus training and project maintenance.
The Diversion Toolkit
A practical resource for implementing diversion consistently, updated throughout the pilot from your feedback.
Ongoing coaching
Promising practices, success stories, and resources shared across the cohort all pilot long.
WE ASK EVERYONE TO
Show up & practice
Engage leadership
Make diversion an organizational priority. not an optional add-on, and name an internal champion to bridge leadership and frontline practice.
Join regular check-ins
Open to everyone in the pilot, not just formal partner agencies. Send at least one person and come ready to share what's working and problem-solve together.
Apply diversion in daily work
Use problem-solving approaches in client interactions and weave diversion into standard intake and outreach.
Track data in HMIS
Consistently document diversion conversations and outcomes per ChangeLine guidance, so the community has one shared picture.
Share feedback
Tell us what’s working and what isn’t!
Peer learning & support
Learning is key.
Diversion Network check-ins
A space to debrief and trade tips. Regular convenings of trained partners to share what's working, ask questions, review outcome data, and strategize around common resource needs and housing barriers.
In person & virtual | 1 hr
Diversion Toolkit & Resource Library
A continuously updated reference: key definitions and best practices, the Diversion Conversation Guide, data-collection instructions, FAQs, and a library of national resources and supplemental tools.
Online tool | Always available
Self-paced learning
Diversion training videos
Pre-recorded modules: a Diversion 101 video for all audiences, plus Diversion Foundations videos (paired with questions) as follow-up for in-depth series participants.
Virtual modules | Self-paced
Angela to email more details
A space to debrief and trade tips. Regular convenings of trained partners to share what's working, ask questions, review outcome data, and strategize around common resource needs and housing barriers.
In person & virtual | 1 hr
Change starts with you.
Measuring what matters.
How we’ll know it’s working
The diversion data you document rolls up into one shared picture of impact tracked at three levels, from individual conversations to system-wide change.
INDIVIDUAL
✔ Staff confidence holding diversion conversations
✔ Diversion households, documented in HMIS
✔ Successful diversions, positive housing exits
AGENCY
✔ Agencies documenting diversion in HMIS
✔ New formal partnerships (MOUs)
✔ Agencies requesting training, support, or HMIS access
SYSTEM
✔ Reduction in first-time homelessness
✔ Fewer returns to homelessness
✔ Shorter length of time homeless
When relationships are strong, anything is possible.
The effectiveness of diversion as a systems-level strategy depends on alignment across every level of an organization, from executive leadership to direct support staff, all rowing in the same direction.
Stay in the loop.
Upcoming meetings
10
Oct
Description goes here.
Meeting minutes
10 Jul
2026