Housing First for Homeless Families

Housing First for homeless families, also known as "rapid re-housing," is an innovative approach that has transformed housing and services delivery for homeless families. Pioneered by Tanya Tull in 1988 through Beyond Shelter, the Los Angeles, CA based agency she founded, the focus of Housing First is to assist homeless families in moving into permanent rental housing in residential neighborhoods as quickly as possible, with minimum stays in the homeless services system (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2004, p. 3).
The program methodology presents an alternative to traditional homeless services for families, which tend to focus on the provision of emergency shelter followed by stays in transitional housing, rather than focusing up front on helping families to access and maintain permanent housing. In contrast, Housing First helps homeless families rapidly relocate to permanent rental housing, with the provision of the services that are traditionally provided in transitional housing instead offered after the family has moved into their own housing. The Housing First approach is premised on the belief that families are more responsive to interventions and support once they are in permanent housing, rather than remaining in emergency shelters and transitional housing for extended periods of time.
In Housing First programs, home-based case management is provided after families move into permanent housing and generally lasts from six months to one year (some program models offer longer-term support for high risk families). These voluntary services may be provided by the Housing First provider or by a partnering nonprofit or public agency. By re-housing families as quickly as possible and then providing direct social services as well as linkages to community-based resources and services for longer-term support, Housing First programs seek to reduce the trauma that parents and children experience while homeless and facilitate community reintegration for vulnerable families.
The Housing First approach is most often implemented in four primary stages (Pew Partnership for Civic Change, 2005, p. 56):
** • Crisis Intervention & Short-Term Stabilization: This phase addresses family crisis needs, including assisting families to access emergency shelter services and/or short-term transitional housing.
** • Screening, Assessment & Planning: Housing First incorporates in-depth screening and assessment that result in an action plan that builds upon a family’s strengths, and also addresses their particular needs. Enrolled families agree to work with a case manager after the move into permanent housing.
** • Provision of Housing Resources: With a plan for housing and social services, families are assisted in overcoming various barriers to obtaining rental housing that may include poor credit, a history of evictions, and housing discrimination. When available, families are provided housing subsidies, move-in funds, furnishings and other basic household needs. Families are then assisted in moving into permanent, affordable housing, preferably in a residential neighborhood.
** • Provision of Home-Based Case Management: Case management is provided both before and after the move, to help families improve their coping skills, become reoriented to stable living patterns, and to establish links with community-based resources and services.
Over the years, this basic model has helped to transform both policy and practice for families on a national scale. In 2000, the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) recommended a Housing First approach for most homeless families in its prototype "Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness" (A Plan: Not a Dream - How to End Homelessness in Ten Years, p. 10). This plan has served as a model for the development of community plans to end homelessness across the country. In June 2006, NAEH released a report, Promising Strategies to End Family Homelessness, which discusses progress several communities have made in combating family homelessness through the adoption of Housing First and related strategies, including the provision of rental assistance of varying duration based on family need (p. 8-9). Most recently, in 2008 the US Department of Housing and Urban Development launched a three-year, $25 million national demonstration project of the efficacy of “rapid re-housing” or Housing First for homeless families (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2008).

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