Homeless Crisis Response
In Salt Lake City, Utah, the expansion of Rapid Re-housing has allowed The Road Home to meet an increased demand for assistance without expanding their shelter capacity or turning families away. By connecting families quickly to income and employment support provided by the local TANF agency, the program is also helping to shore up supports that families will require after they are housed.
In some communties, HUD's Continuum of Care funding is used as a linear model where people experiencing homelessness are expected to progress through levels of care and demonstrate "readiness" for permanent housing. However, over the last decade, many communities have begun to adopt an approach that focuses on preventing and ending homelessness and rapidly returning people who have become homeless to housing. Despite the documented success of this model over the traditional Continuum of Care model, implementation varies markedly in each community. To end homelessness in this country, communities must restructure their homeless service system into effective and rapid crisis response systems.
Guidance from USICH on building better crisis response systems
5 program profiles on programs paving the way around the country
Below users can find information and resources on the following topics:
- Centralized/Coordinated Intake and Assessment
- Strategic Targeting
- Homelessness Prevention Programs
- Shelter Diversion and Rapid Re-Housing
- Reducing Shelter Stays
- Housing First/High Cost Users
Blog
Reflections from the Streets of Hollywood
What We're Talking About: The Week at USICH - October 8-12
Rapid Results Boot Camp: The 100 Day Challenge
Transitioning to stability: VA provides incentive for Transition in Place model
Local United Ways Playing a Leading Role
Housing First: a movement goes mainstream
Fact Sheets
Opening Doors: Preventing Homelessness
It isn’t enough to move people out of homelessness; we must keep people from falling into homelessness. The threat of ...
SAMHSA Homelessness Prevention Panel - Guiding Principles and Strategies
In April 2011, leaders from USICH, SAMHSA, and ASPE (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HHS) led an expert ...
Programs
Community Development Block Grants
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is a flexible ...
Emergency Food and Shelter Program
The Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) was created to supplement and expand the work of local social service agencies, both ...
Emergency Solutions Grants
The Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) Program provides funding to engage individuals and families living on the street, improve the ...
Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program
The Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP) was authorized in 2009 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment ...
Housing Counseling Program
The Housing Counseling Program delivers a wide variety of housing counseling services to homebuyers, homeowners, low- to ...
National Runaway Switchboard
The Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) serves runaway and homeless youth by funding the following grant programs: the Basic Center ...
Street Outreach Program
The Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) serves runaway and homeless youth by funding the following grant programs: the Basic Center ...
Supportive Housing Program
The Supportive Housing Program (SHP) is designed to promote the development of housing and supportive services to assist homeless ...
Supportive Services for Veterans Families (SSVF) Program
The Supportive Services for Veterans Families Program works with nonprofit organizations to provide social services for low-income and ...
Related Research
A Prevention-Centered Approach to Homelessness Assistance: A Paradigm Shift?
Dennis Culhane, Stephen Metraux and Thomas Byrne May 2011 Prevention has long been cited as an important part of any strategy to ...
Adopting Best Practices: Lessons Learned in the Collaborative Initiative to Help End Chronic Homelessness (CICH)
Sarah A. McGraw, Mary Jo Larson, Susan E. Foster, Marilyn Kresky-Wolff, Elizabeth M. Botelho, Emily A. Elstad, Ana Stefancic and Sam ...
A Paradigm Shift in Housing and Homeless Services: Applying the Population and High-Risk Framework to Preventing Homelessness
Jocelyn Apicello September 2009 Unfortunately, the practice of homelessness prevention is still in its infancy and there is little ...
Housing Stability among Homeless Individuals with Serious Mental Illness Participating in Housing First Programs
Carol Pearson, Ann Elizabeth Montgomery and Gretchen Locke April 2009 This article presents findings from an exploratory study of ...
Rearranging the Deck Chairs or Reallocating the Lifeboats? Homelessness Assistance and Its Alternatives
Dennis P. Culhane and Stephen Metraux December 2008 At present, homelessness in the United States is primarily addressed by ...
Critical Time Intervention: An Empirically Supported Model for Preventing Homelessness in High Risk Groups
Daniel Herman, Sarah Conover, Alan Felix, Aman Nakagawa and Danika Mills July 2007 Critical Time Intervention (CTI) is designed to ...
Housing First for Long-Term Shelter Dwellers with Psychiatric Disabilities in a Suburban County: A Four-Year Study of Housing Access and Retention
Ana Stefancic and Sam Tsemberis July 2007 Housing First is an effective intervention that ends and prevents homelessness for ...
The Applicability of Housing First Models to Homeless Persons with Serious Mental Illness.
Carol L. Pearson, Gretchen Locke, Ann Elizabeth Montgomery, and Larry Buron July 2008 In recent years, increased public ...
Community-Wide Strategies for Preventing Homelessness: Recent Evidence
Martha R. Burt, Carol Pearson and Ann Elizabeth Montgomery June 2007 This article summarizes the findings of a study of ...
Testing a Typology of Family Homelessness
Dennis P. Culhane, Stephen Metraux, Jung Min Park, Maryanne Schretzman and Jesse Valente May 2007 This study tests a typology of ...
Characteristics of Transitional Housing for Homeless Families
Martha R. Burt September 7, 2006 This report was written in preparation for a larger study sponsored by HUD’s Office of ...
Evaluability Assessment of Discharge Planning and the Prevention of Homelessness: Final Report
Garrett Moran, Rafael Semansky, Elizabeth Quinn, Rebecca Noftsinger and Teresa Koenig September 22, 2005 Past research has ...
Strategies For Preventing Homelessness
Martha R. Burt and Carol L. Pearson May 2005 Homelessness prevention is an essential element of any effort to end homelessness ...
Strategies for reducing chronic street homelessness
Martha R. Burt 2004 This is an experimental time for programs to reduce chronic street homelessness. The many communities trying ...
Housing first, consumer choice, harm reduction for homeless individuals with a dual diagnosis
Sam Tsemberis 2004 This study examined the longitudinal effects of a Housing First program for homeless, mentally ill individuals ...
The prevention of homelessness revisited
Marybeth Shinn 2004 Conceptual and methodological problems plague efforts to prevent homelessness. Attempts to identify ...
Housing Characteristics and Adequacy of the Physical Care of Children: An Exploratory Analysis
Joy Swanson Ernst 2004 This study explored the relationship between housing conditions and the adequacy of the physical care of ...
Examining Policies to Reduce Homelessness Using a General Equilibrium Model of the Housing Market
Erin T. Mansura, John M. Quigley, Steven Raphael and Eugene Smolensky September 2002 In this study uses a general equilibrium ...
Towards a comprehensive homeless-prevention strategy
Eric N. Lindblom 1991 Because of the misery and deprivation suffered by homeless persons, the initial response to homelessness in ...
Health Care and Public Service Use and Costs Before and After Provision of Housing for Chronically Homeless Persons With Severe Alcohol Problems
Mary E. Larimer, Daniel K. Malone, Michelle D. Garner, David C. Atkins, Bonnie Burlingham, Heather S. Lonczak, Kenneth Tanzer, Joshua ...
Denver Housing First Collaborative Cost Benefit Analysis and Program Outcomes Report
Jennifer Perlman and John Parvensky December 11, 2006 The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless created the Denver Housing First ...
Risk Factors For Long-Term Homelessness
Carol L. M. Caton, Boanerges Dominguez, Bella Schanzer, Deborah S. Hasin, Patrick E. Shrout, Alan Felix, Hunter McQuistion, ...
Resources for Accessing Technical Assistance
Special Needs Assistance Programs (SNAPS)
Visit the HUD Homeless Resource Exchange Department of Housing and Urban Development, Community Planning and ...
Grant and Per Diem
Department of Veterans Affairs The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Grant and Per Diem Program is offered annually, as ...
National Resource Center on Domestic Violence
http://www.nrcdv.org/ Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families The National Resource ...
Runaway and Homeless Youth
http://www.rhyttac.ou.edu/ Department of Health and Human Services, Adminstration for Children and Families The regional training ...
USICH Webpages
HEARTH and Your Community
As providers and stakeholders across the country, we are all aware that the HEARTH Act enacted by Congress in 2009 is, in many ways, a ...
Retooling Crisis Response Systems
In some communities, HUD's Continuum of Care funding is used as a linear model where people experiencing homelessness are expected ...
Videos and Webinars
SAMHSA Webinar on Homelessness Prevention
The longer someone has been homeless, the more difficult—and expensive—it becomes to restore stability. An April 2011 ...
Implementing Coordinated/Centralized Intake
Join USICH and HUD to learn about coordinated/centralized intake – an essential ingredient of an effective crisis response ...
Retooling the Homeless Crisis Response System
Objective 10 of Opening Doors calls upon communities to “transform homeless services to crisis response systems that prevent ...
