Chicago’s Community-Wide Housing First Approach

1. Chicago’s Community-Wide Housing First Approach Betsy Benito Chicago Department of Housing NAEH Conference 2007

2. Selling Points for System-wide Change • We were serving significant numbers of both individuals and families, and neither very well • Emergency Response System, designed to expand and contract with need, was not contracting • Other characteristics: • Too many people entering shelter • Inconsistent services • No clear path to housing • Everyone lined up for supportive housing resources, even if they didn’t need the support • Change can happen with current resources

3. Chicago's Homeless System Composition 2003

4. Guiding Documents Supporting Community-wide Housing First • “Getting Housed, Staying Housed” (2002) • Program Models Chart (2003) • System Assumptions and Conversion Methodology (2004) • Implementation Schedule (2005)

5. Hallmarks of Chicago’s Plan • System Projections • Prevention Resources and Infrastructure • Conversion of Transitional Housing • Targeting Resources • Low-income individuals and families • Housing and services for hard to serve individuals

6. System Projections • Create a set of assumptions about the people who use your current services • Disability rates • Length of homelessness • Exits to unsubsidized housing • Family size • Use national statistics if you don’t have your own data • Determine of those who are homeless today, what housing would they need/qualify for with homeless resources • Figure in what are the needs of those who are “newly” homeless - are they different from the current homeless population?

7. Current and Future System Projection

8. Increased Focus on Prevention • Prevention is a cost effective investment - easy sell as a place to put additional resources • We have associated prevention outcomes with decreases in shelter use over the past 4 years • New infrastructure is being put in place to streamline access to funds and capture data on people who request resources

9. Conversion of Transitional Housing • Conversion of Transitional (1-2 year programs) to either 120-day Interim Housing or Permanent Housing is the linchpin of Chicago’s Housing First approach • Program conversions changed the expectation of services provided and the associated outcomes- particularly in relation to permanent housing placement and retention • Technical assistance has been provided - paid in large part by private foundations - first to get agencies thinking differently about homeless programs, and now on using specific strategies to meet or exceed outcomes

10. Chicago's Homeless System Composition 2006

11. Targeting Resources • Targeting new resources - or existing resources - can help understand how different populations respond to a housing-first approach • Can you “cream” households able to pay rent and use mainstream services into unsubsidized housing? • Can people who live on the street succeed in permanent housing with services?

12. Success and Challenges • We had to make change and movement with little to no new resources • We now have received a new commitment of housing resources for long-term homeless to jumpstart movement out of shelter • 2006 had the lowest number of homeless households since before the Plan began • Monitoring “fidelity” to program models and evaluating client outcomes