On 6 May, we hosted the Expert Focus Group in València, as part of the co-creation activities within the Living Lab-Spain of the COMHOM project. The event brought together leading voices in homelessness, housing, and residential exclusion to inform and shape the common Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) Framework currently being developed by Sant Joan de Déu València (SJDVAL). The event took place in the outstanding venue of Las Naves building, part of València Innovation Capital, with the collaboration of the University of Valencia (UV).
We were proud to welcome experts from renowned organisations such as FEANTSA, the OECD, KU Leuven, J-PAL, MIT, the Centre for Homelessness Impact, George Washington University, University College Dublin, Y-Säätiö, ENIPSSA, Arrels Fundació, Institut Metròpoli, the Metropolitan Research Institute, and the Centre for Social Impact in Australia, among others.
Together, we explored the current state of monitoring and evaluation in diverse regions through two cases presentations by the Western Australian Alliance to End Homelessness (WAAEH) and the Centre for Homelessness Impact from the UK. The discussions were grounded in the Theory of Change developed by the SJDVAL research team, which served as a foundation to assess which indicators and variables can better reflect the complex pathways involved. We also examined the challenges and opportunities in improving how services are evaluated.
The insights and perspectives shared will now be highly valuable in framing the final set of operational variables to harmonise data collection across housing resources for people experiencing homelessness. This Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Framework will serve as the cornerstone of the COMHOM data lake, where the 25 sub-granting organizations will share their data.
We are deeply grateful to all participants for their time, openness, and commitment. It was truly inspiring to exchange ideas with people who are working towards the same goal: building evaluation frameworks that drive real impact and promote person-centered responses through digitalisation and AI tools.