CISS approached with a bold ask: help us end homelessness. It was a problem defined by scale, urgency, and complexity. But the real constraint wasn’t housing stock or funding models—it was the conventional framing of the problem itself.
For decades, solutions to homelessness have centered around stabilization—providing shelter, services, or financial support. And while those are essential, the outcomes remained cyclical. Individuals fell back into crisis. Programs filled up. And agencies scrambled to do more with less.
The missing element? Empowerment.
Behind every person experiencing homelessness was a unique story—but also untapped potential. What was needed wasn’t just more intervention. It was a shift from solving homelessness for people to designing systems that empower people to solve it with agency.
The pivotal insight emerged not from asking why people became homeless—but how they got out.
By flipping the lens from risk to resilience, twopoint0 uncovered a replicable, human-centered pattern: self-sufficiency isn’t just a result—it’s a capability. And it can be nurtured.
What if we stopped viewing services as endpoints—and started designing ecosystems that nurture individual agency?
That question became the backbone of a new strategic model. Not just a service hub. A behaviorally-informed empowerment engine.
CISS needed a solution that could drive sustainable exits from homelessness. Like many organizations, the default strategy leaned on service coordination, shelter expansion, and system-level partnerships. The goal was housing stability.
But this model was reaching its limits. Even with support, individuals cycled through systems. The needle wasn’t moving fast—or far—enough.
Rather than designing for stability, the strategy evolved to design toward empowerment. That shift revealed a powerful opportunity: build a command center that functions as a behavioral transformation hub.
The insight? Services don’t empower people. People empower themselves—when systems remove friction and activate agency.
The framing evolved from service coordination to personal trajectory design. And that meant rethinking every layer: from intake to language, from metrics to mindsets.
Empowering individuals experiencing homelessness involves more than just providing access to resources; it requires fostering an environment where they are encouraged to take active steps towards their own recovery and stability. Solutions that incorporate human effort acknowledge the capabilities and potential of each individual to contribute to their own journey out of homelessness. This approach respects their dignity and autonomy, offering not just a handout but a hand up.
The shift wasn’t easy. Empowerment can feel abstract, especially in systems built for compliance and case management. But the transformation became a rallying point. Teams began to see individuals not through deficits, but through potential. Conversations changed. Outcomes accelerated.
This wasn’t just a new tool. It was a new identity for the system itself.
The Empowerment Command Center redefined what it means to design for impact.
By focusing on personal agency as the true lever for transformation, it created a replicable model that:
The ECC isn’t competing with traditional models—it’s completing them.
It complements Housing First with People First, and brings a missing layer of behavioral strategy to the work of solving homelessness.
The Empowerment Command Center is just the beginning.
Already deployed in Des Moines, it's now being codified for replication in new cities, with training pathways, implementation blueprints, and co-designed behavioral tools.
And coming alongside it is bindl—the digital activation companion that extends the ECC’s behavioral framework into daily life, nudging agency and supporting self-driven progress at scale.
The future isn’t just more services. It’s systems that make people powerful.
