Best Practices

Housing First

There is broad recognition that housing is a crucial social determinant of health. PEH (particularly single adults), cycle in and out of hospital emergency rooms, jails, and through many public services while homeless. There is ample evidence that shows housing, specifically permanent supportive housing (PSH), can reduce utilization and costs of emergency care and corrections for chronically homeless and disabled single adults. Affordable housing should be prioritized across community systems, particularly for those who are the highest utilizers of costly emergency services among this population, ensuring they have access to new and existing affordable housing and supportive housing opportunities.

Source: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/em/spring-summer-23/highlight1.html

Eviction Prevention Programs

• Eviction prevention involves “working upstream” to prevent people from losing their homes through efforts to stop or reduce the inflow into the homeless service system while helping vulnerable individuals and families maintain housing stability. This includes prevention and diversion programs that incorporate financial aid, counselling, and legal assistance for at-risk tenants.
• Permanent rental housing subsidies have proven very effective to prevent homelessness among poor families. Rental subsidies can be utilized to rapidly rehouse those who recently lost their housing as well.
• The Housing Vouchers for Welfare Families study assigned random families eligible forTemporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF) to a voucher or put them on a waiting list for avoucher. Among the 67% of families who successfully used their voucher to lease housing,homelessness was entirely prevented.

Source: http://www.evidenceonhomelessness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02Homelessness_Prevention_Literature_Synthesis.pdf