Ending Homelessness

Definitions

Temporary Housing Interventions

Temporary housing is housing which the household must leave at the end of the program. Drop-in Shelter.

• Emergency Shelter
  • Drop-in Shelter is a facility-based, night-by-night living arrangement that allows clients to enter and exit on an irregular or daily basis. Continuous-stay Shelter
  • Continuous-stay Shelter includes facility-based housing or hotel/motel vouchers where households have a room or bed assigned to them for up to 90 days. Interim Housing
  • FROM CHHS RFP: Emergency shelters play a critical role in a crisis response system. Low barrier, permanent housing-focused shelters not only ensure individuals and families have a safe place to stay, but that their experience of homelessness is as brief as possible. Emergency shelters should ensure that that they have no barriers to entry and have inclusive policies for all persons. In addition, emergency shelters should be housing-focused with case management targeted at reducing client’s barriers to housing and connecting the household to housing options through Coordinated Assessment and other non-homeless housing programs.

• Transitional Housing is facility-based housing where households have a room or bed assigned to them for more than 90 days and up to 24 months. NOTE: HUD typically does not accept new applications for TH because it's a much more expensive intervention that has not been shown to be as effective as interventions like RRH. It can be highly effective for certain populations like youth or those fleeing DV.
  • FROM HUD: Transitional housing (TH) is designed to provide homeless individuals and families with the interim stability and support to successfully move to and maintain permanent housing. Transitional housing may be used to cover the costs of up to 24 months of housing with accompanying supportive services. Program participants must have a lease (or sublease) or occupancy agreement in place when residing in transitional housing. The provisions of the CoC Program’s TH program component have not changed significantly from the TH provisions under SHP.
  • FROM CHHS RFP: Transitional housing can be an effective tool for addressing certain needs such as housing for homeless youth who are unable to sign a lease, safety for persons fleeing domestic violence and assistance with recovery from addiction. As part of a crisis response system, transitional housing programs should serve populations proven to be successful with this intervention; have reduced barriers to entry; and policies that ensure client- driven housing stabilization.

Permanent Housing Interventions

Permanent housing is housing in which the household may stay as long as they meet the basic obligations of tenancy.

• Targeted Prevention resolves imminent homelessness with temporary rent subsidies and housing-focused case management. The services are time-limited and the household does not have to leave when services end. NOTE: We only fund prevention through the HEN program.
• Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) quickly moves households from homelessness into permanent housing by providing temporary rent subsidies and housing-focused case management. The services are time-limited and the household does not have to leave when services end. NOTE: A major shift towards RRH took place in recent years. We fund RRH with six CoC grants, CHG, ESG, and little HHAA
  • FROM CHHS RFP: Rapid re-housing is designed to assist homeless individuals and families, with or without disability, to move into permanent housing within twenty (20) days of being referred from Coordinated Assessment and achieve stability in that housing. Assistance provided through rapid re-housing should focus on progressive engagement methodology and be client-centered. Once clients have been housed, rapid re-housing providers should stay connected with them and provide a safety-net, if needed, that promotes long-term housing stability and reduces returns to the homeless system. Projects funded to provide Rapid Re-housing will work collaboratively with the Coordinated Assessment to ensure streamline processes that will result in household’s homeless episode ending in 20 days or less.
  • FROM HUD: Rapid re-housing (RRH) emphasizes housing search and relocation services and short- and medium-term rental assistance to move homeless persons and families (with or without a disability) as rapidly as possible into permanent housing.
• Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) is subsidized, non-time-limited housing with support services for homeless households that include an adult member with a permanent disability. Support services must be made available but participation is voluntary. PSH may be provided as a rent assistance (scattered site) or facility-based model. The services and the housing are available permanently. NOTE: As a general rule, rent/leasing dollars for PSH in Spokane come from CoC grants and the supportive services dollars are filled in by HHOS. This is unlikely to be a sustainable strategy moving forward. We are exploring other options as a Continuum.
  • FROM HUD: Permanent supportive housing (PSH) for persons with disabilities and rapid re-housing. Permanent supportive housing is permanent housing with indefinite leasing or rental assistance paired with supportive services to assist homeless persons with a disability or families with an adult or child member with a disability achieve housing stability.
  • FROM CHHS RFP: Support Services for Permanent Housing can include support for an existing Permanent Supportive Housing Project or services to support participants in obtaining and stabilizing in Permanent Housing, including the activities of housing search and stabilization. These projects should have minimal barriers to entry, provide on-site services and prioritize the most vulnerable homeless households. Support services should be informed by harm reduction and employ flexible and creative person-centered services to ensure continued housing stabilization. Services should be available and encouraged but cannot be required as a condition of tenancy. Projects providing or supporting permanent housing will ensure that client assessments are completed in the timeline and method detailed in the contract. There should be ongoing communication and coordination between supportive service providers, property owners or managers and housing subsidy programs.

Support Services Only

Support Services Only projects are those homeless service projects that are not intended to directly house clients, but provide some other form of service to connect homeless households to essential housing resources.

FROM HUD: The supportive services only (SSO) program component allows recipients and subrecipients to provide services to homeless individuals and families not residing in housing operated by the recipient. SSO recipients and subrecipients may use the funds to conduct outreach to sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons and families [Street Outreach], link clients with housing or other necessary services [Coordinated Entry], and provide ongoing support SSO projects. These projects may be offered in a structure or structures at one central site, or in multiple buildings at scattered sites where services are delivered. Projects may be operated independent of a building (e.g., street outreach) and in a variety of community-based settings, including in homeless programs operated by other agencies.

• Diversion is a strategy that prevents homelessness for people seeking shelter by helping them identify immediate alternate housing arrangements and, if necessary, connecting them with services and financial assistance to help them return to permanent housing. NOTE: Diversion works with a similar population as Prevention but the financial assistance available to clients is incredibly limited (bus passes, some rental/utility arrears, deposits). The purpose of the project type is to enable those households who have been identified as most likely to solve their housing crisis on their own to do so with the lightest touch from the system as possible. Some systems do Diversion at the shelter level. We do it through Coordinated Entry.
  • FROM CHHS RFP: Diversion is a strategy that prevents homelessness by helping households experiencing a housing crisis to preserve their current housing situation or make immediate alternative arrangement without having to enter the homeless system. Diversion programs should employ creative strategies, structured problem solving and support for households in crisis to resolve their current housing crisis. Successful diversion programs will treat the process as an opportunity to explore a household’s current housing crisis and be creative about housing options, including exploring every available resource a household might have to stay housed or move directly to other housing.

• Street Outreach is designed to Identify and engage unsheltered households who are not connected with existing services and connect them to appropriate housing resources and support them until an appropriate hand off of services is available.
  • FROM CHHS RFP: Outreach should be highly accessible to the unsheltered homeless population and focused on engaging homeless individuals who are not connecting with other services. The outreach team should employ strategies of "aggressive engagement" and work to reframe the possibility of housing. The outreach team will target the unsheltered homeless population regardless of mental health diagnosis, engagement in treatment or engagement in any other mainstream resources. Preference will be given to outreach projects that can show how they will connect and participate in the local SOAR initiative.

• Coordination Entry (also referred to as Coordinated Assessment) is a process developed to ensure that all people experiencing a housing crisis have fair and equal access and are quickly identified, assessed for, referred, and connected to housing and assistance based on their strengths and needs.
  • FROM NAEH: Coordinated assessment, also known as coordinated entry or coordinated intake, paves the way for more efficient homeless assistance systems by:
    • Helping people move through the system faster (by reducing the amount of time people spend moving from program to program before finding the right match);
    • Reducing new entries into homelessness (by consistently offering prevention and diversion resources upfront, reducing the number of people entering the system unnecessarily); and
    • Improving data collection and quality and providing accurate information on what kind of assistance consumers need.
    Coordinated assessment is ideally a system-wide process and can serve any and all populations. Systems may accomplish coordinated assessment through the use of a centralized phone hotline (e.g. a 2-1-1), a single physical point of assessment (through an emergency shelter or a dedicated assessment center, for example) or a decentralized coordinated system (with multiple assessment points all employing the same assessment and referral process). Each of these models has its advantages and drawbacks, which are documented in the Alliance's paper on the topic. Each assessment point in a coordinated system handles assessment or screening of consumer need, data entry, referrals, and, potentially, program admissions. Ideally, these centers are the main access points for prevention and diversion services as well. Assessment center staff, after an initial assessment, should either provide the necessary prevention or diversion services or admit or refer a family to the program that is best equipped to get them into permanent housing as quickly as possible.
  • FROM CHHS RFP: Coordinated Assessment (CA) refers to the Continuum wide effort to provide a real time response to households in a housing crisis. Successful CA projects will treat the process as an opportunity to explore a household's current housing crisis and be creative about housing options, including exploring every available resource a household might have to stay housed or move directly to other housing. Projects funded for Coordinated Assessment will work collaboratively with the Rapid Re-housing providers to ensure streamline processes that will result clients household's homeless episode ending in twenty (20) days or less. For households that have no alternative to entering the homeless system, the CA sites will assess vulnerability of the homeless households and connect them to the appropriate housing resource based upon level of need. The goal of CA is to provide each homeless household with the services and supports needed to rapidly return them to permanent housing. Key components of CA include housing first, client choice, collaboration between community partners, data quality, performance and data driven decision making and prioritization of chronically homeless households for permanent supportive housing.