Housing First, Part 2

All Housing First providers focus on helping individuals and families move into permanent housing as quickly as possible, based on the premise that social service needs can best be addressed after they move in to their new home.

The services provided to Housing First participants vary according to need, which is one of the reasons it can be adapted. Sometimes, Housing First programs assist only with crisis intervention and re-housing, and then link the new tenants to services in the community. On the other end of the spectrum, those tenants with more intensive and chronic problems may require long-term, housing-based services. The goal is to provide just enough services to ensure successful tenancy and promote the economic and social well-being of individuals and families. The capacity of programs to provide supportive services following a housing placement is largely determined by, and determines, who is targeted for Housing First services.

Determining the effectiveness of Housing First programs relies on capturing outcome data. Among the primary outcomes that should be assessed in a Housing First program are individual or family housing outcomes. How rapidly are families being re-housed? Are individuals and families remaining housed? Do families or individuals re-enter shelter?

Programs may want to capture outcomes on family or individual well-being. Programs serving families may include employment and earning outcomes and school performance of children. Programs serving chronically homeless individuals might examine increases or decreases in hospital stays, involvement with law enforcement, or engagement in employment. Cost reduction can also be an important metric.

It is also critical to examine the impact of Housing First in reducing overall homelessness in the community or city. This can be done through regular counts of homeless people. Another possible metric is to assess whether the average length of a homelessness episode is being reduced.

A growing body of research documents the effectiveness of the Housing First approach when used in working with homeless people who have serious behavioral health and other disabilities. This research indicates that the approach is effective both at placing and retaining people in permanent housing and at reducing the costs associated with these individuals within the health care and judicial systems.

Housing First also works for people with less intensive needs. Recent research in the United States demonstrated the high cost of shelter and transitional housing stays for homeless individuals and families, especially relative to the cost of housing. A significant recent U.S. investment in Rapid Re-Housing will provide much more information on the efficacy and cost of this intervention for a wider group of homeless people. The Housing First approach, across all populations and categories of need, is clearly having an influence, and communities across the United States are beginning to re-engineer their homeless and mainstream systems to focus on the promotion of housing stability.

Moving forward, it is important to embrace the Housing First approach as one that might greatly contribute toward ending homelessness much more rapidly for individuals, families and the nation.

Information courtesy of endhomelessness.org