From Research to County Strategy: How Negative Learning Shaped Camden County’s Shared Housing Innovation

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Olorunfunmi Adebajo
December 15, 2025

As with other jurisdictions across the U.S., homelessness in Camden County is rising. Camden City, the county seat and home to Rutgers University–Camden, bears a disproportionate share of this burden.¹ County administrators set a goal of ending chronic homelessness and achieving functional zero. Rather than hiring consultants, the county leveraged its university partnership, deploying graduate students for real-time implementation support—from research to protocol development. This town-gown approach transformed academic capacity into responsive infrastructure, enabling rapid protocol development, stakeholder coordination, and evidence-informed experimentation.

In Fall 2024, I joined the Office of Homelessness Prevention and Community Development as the first international student intern, tasked with researching shared housing as a solution for achieving the county’s functional zero goal. Nine months later, 75 service providers had completed year-long training with the Shared Housing Institute of America, two master-lease pilots were underway, and another Rutgers student was drafting a formal Landlord Engagement Protocol based on early research notes.

This is not typical policy translation. With recent cuts to federal Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) and a rental market where one-third of units are owned by LLCs that routinely reject vouchers, Camden faces a projected 22% increase in homelessness.

Negative Learning as Policy Innovation

A national best-practice analysis conducted for the county examined shared housing models in cities like Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Seattle—each operating under distinct governance structures. Camden’s greatest advantage from this analysis was learning quickly what would not work given its constraints.

1. Camden Should Not Become a Landlord

Philadelphia’s shared-housing portfolio relies on city-managed property acquisition, inspection, tenant placement, and enforcement. This requires staffing structures and capital authority Camden County does not have—and should not try to build amid fiscal pressures.

Negative learning: Replication requires resources, not just admiration.

2. Nonprofits Cannot Be Expected to Do What They Are Not Resourced to Do

Phoenix’s model depends on nonprofits with decades of landlord relationships and strong property-management portfolios. Camden’s nonprofits are skilled in case management, not property management or master leasing. Expecting them to “scale up” overnight would recreate failures seen elsewhere.

Negative learning: Asking partners to scale beyond their infrastructure guarantees failure.

3. Shared Housing Cannot Succeed Without a Landlord Strategy

Across every jurisdiction studied, success was determined by landlords—not units or programs. Providers described deals collapsing when background checks, credit histories, or shared tenancy concepts came up.

Negative learning: Without landlords, housing models are theoretical exercises.

Government as Catalyst, Not Contractor

Camden County leadership absorbed these lessons quickly. Rather than debating which model to replicate, they asked a different question: What role can we actually play? These insights led the county to embrace a strategic role: government as catalyst rather than implementer.

The county made two strategic investments: using levy funds to sponsor year-long training with the Shared Housing Institute for 75 service providers, and using Homeless Trust Fund dollars for two master-lease pilots targeting reentry women and system-involved youth.

The pilots reflected this catalytic strategy. One nonprofit master-leased a home for justice-impacted women, reducing risk for landlords and stabilizing tenancy for residents. Another agency leased a shared unit for young adults, pairing housing with employment coaching and conflict-resolution support. Results varied—one pilot revealed organizational capacity gaps, another struggled with participant recruitment. Camden adjusted case-management requirements and used these early-stage results to refine future funding conditions. This willingness to iterate, learn publicly, and adapt quickly is a defining feature of Camden’s approach.

A Countywide Landlord Engagement Framework

Research across the United States and international models like Finland’s Housing First implementation revealed a consistent pattern: landlord engagement determined whether housing strategies succeeded or failed. When county administrators asked, “What’s the lowest-hanging fruit we can actually implement?” the answer was clear: landlord engagement.

Camden County acted immediately. Early research notes were reorganized into an actionable framework the county is now adapting: pre-screening landlords and creating shared contact lists across providers, hosting outreach breakfasts and informational sessions, offering risk-mitigation incentives, and using selective master leasing for high-barrier populations.

The urgency for this strategy is heightened by local market conditions. LLCs now own more than one-third of all single-family and small multifamily homes in Camden City—entities significantly less likely to rent to voucher holders or tenants with screening barriers. Any shared housing strategy that ignored this reality would fail.

To sustain the work, Camden County has engaged a second Rutgers scholar—a Bonner Fellow—who is continuing development of the countywide Landlord Engagement Protocol, focusing on strengthening landlord outreach practices and developing tools providers need for consistent implementation across the Continuum of Care in 2026.

A Functional-Zero Goal Paired with Real Action

By November 2025, Camden County’s catalytic strategy was bearing fruit. During the last session of the Shared Housing Institute’s year-long training, one question surfaced repeatedly from nonprofit practitioners, not government officials: “How do we keep our people from being evicted?”

That moment signaled a shift. Shared housing was no longer just a county initiative—it had become a shared regional responsibility. Teams began building landlord lists, committing to strategic implementation, and outlining pilot plans. One nonprofit with master-leasing experience offered to mentor others.

Camden County demonstrated that achieving functional zero is less about resource abundance and more about policy innovation.

Conclusion

As an international student studying public administration, watching Camden County translate my research into rapid policy action in nine months has been one of the most meaningful parts of my American experience. What makes Camden County’s experience internationally relevant is that local governments can serve as laboratories of innovation, and that this pragmatic, learning-oriented approach is a replicable governance strategy for any complex system where no single agency holds all the tools.

¹ In 2024, Camden City accounted for approximately 60% of Camden County’s Point-in-Time homeless count while representing 12% of the county’s population (Monarch Housing Associates, 2024 New Jersey Point-in-Time Count).

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Author: Olorunfunmi Adebajo is a 2025 graduate of Rutgers University–Camden’s Master of Public Administration program. She previously led education, economic empowerment and gender-based response programs in underserved communities in Nigeria. Her work focuses on developing solutions to urban poverty, governance and community-centered policy reform across the U.S. and Africa. She can be reached at [email protected]

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