Avoiding the Housing Turnstyle

In the world of homelessness assistance, housing is the number one priority. There are several facets to our job, but our overall goal is to help people reach a point in their lives where they can find housing and remain housed. Providing a temporary place for people to dwell is important and allows them the opportunities to set their lives in order and deal with the issues that are keeping them homeless.

Over the years, Samaritan House has helped countless people make the transition from the streets or other places never intended for habitation to permanent housing. Every time this happens we are humbled that we were able to play a part in helping change and transform someone's life for the better. Housing is the number one goal on our priority list.

But what happens after people exit homelessness to housing?

In an ideal world, homelessness should be rare, brief, and non-recurring. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. People who have been housed through homeless programs sometimes fall back into homelessness. Fortunately, researchers are working to determine why some households remain stably housed and others don’t.

A study released recently examined what happens to families and to individuals after exiting the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program. Researchers examined outcomes for households who received rapid re-housing services and who received prevention services, and they followed up with households both one year and two years after exiting SSVF.

Overall, the results were positive. The vast majority of families and individuals served by SSVF’s rapid re-housing and prevention services remained housed, as you can see from the chart below.

Now that we have a sense of the percentage of households who will experience homelessness and the time frame for the highest risk of homelessness, let’s look at what other factors increase risk of homelessness. Researchers examined many variables, but a few factors had the strongest predictive potential for future homelessness:

Age. Among individual veterans, those aged 45-54 had the highest risk of homelessness. Amongst veterans in families, those aged 45-61 had the highest risk of homelessness.

Exit destination. Though the goal of SSVF is to exit all households to permanent housing, sometimes that doesn’t happen. Households who exited to any destination other than housing were more likely to become homeless in the future.

Security deposit assistance. Households (both individuals and families) who received assistance paying a security deposit were at a decreased risk of future homelessness.

The findings from this study are cause for optimism. The vast majority of households who received SSVF prevention or rapid re-housing services were successful in avoiding homelessness two years after they stopped receiving SSVF assistance.

Unfortunately, while not all households who reconnect to housing will remain stably housed, studies like this one are a critical tool in helping providers target services to those who are at an increased risk of future homelessness.

Thank you for partnering with us as we do what we can to make sure housing becomes a permanent situation.