Rosanne Haggerty had been working in homelessness services for a decade when she had a breakthrough. A chance conversation with Sarah, an elderly woman who lived on the streets, led Haggerty to think differently about homelessness.

Housing was only part of the equation. The missing link was a system that could deliver homes to everyone who needed them — especially the people the current systems too often missed, like Sarah. 

Built for Zero was created to provide this link. It’s a network of more than 80 communities across the country working to end homelessness.

From responding to homelessness, to solving it — for good

The quest to develop lasting solutions to homelessness led Haggerty to found Community Solutions in 2011. Today, more than 200,000 people have been housed by partner communities. Fourteen cities and counties around the country have ended veteran or chronic homelessness, and many more are on their way toward these goals.

“We realized the key was a system that could deliver the solution to everyone who needed it,” Haggerty said. “We needed to think differently about the problem. We needed to find communities who weren’t interested in the status quo, but in truly ending homelessness. And we needed partners like Rocket Mortgage who shared our obsession for solving complex problems and were willing to step up on a national scale to help.”