Affordable Housing for People with Disabilities
April 2009 - Priced Out in 2008: The Housing Crisis of People with Disabilities
Family Homelessness
Dennis Culhane and Stephen Metraux propose a new approach to family homelessness based on research:
Rearranging the Deck Chairs or Reallocating the Lifeboats?: Homelessness Assistance and Its Alternatives
"This study tests a typology of family homelessness based on patterns of public shelter utilization and examines whether family characteristics are associated with those patterns. The results indicate that a substantial majority of homeless families stay in public shelters for relatively brief periods, exit, and do not return. Approximately 20 percent stay for long periods. A small but noteworthy proportion cycles in and out of shelters repeatedly. In general, families with long stays are no more likely than families with short stays to have intensive behavioral health treatment histories, to be disabled, or to be unemployed. Families with repeat stays have the highest rates of intensive behavioral health treatment, placement of children in foster care, disability, and unemployment.
The results suggest that policy and program factors, rather than family characteristics, are responsible for long shelter stays. An alternative conceptual framework for providing emergency assistance to homeless families is discussed."
From:
Testing a Typology of Family Homelessness Based on Patterns of Public Shelter Utilization in Four U.S. Jurisdictions: Implications for Policy and Program Planning by Dennis P. Culhane, Stephen Metraux, Jung Min Park, Maryanne Schretzman, Jesse Valente
The Vera Institute of Justice looked at family homelessness in New York City. Click here.
Homelessness Prevention For the powerpoint presentation on the Ohio Family Homelessness Prevention Pilot Program,
click here.
Preventing Homelessness and Promoting Housing Stability: A Comparative Analysis
This evaluation of three prevention programs in Massachusetts assess the value and effectiveness of prevention activities, calculates cost effectiveness, and measures outcomes. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development commissioned a study on homelessness prevention. Click here.
Prisoner Re-entry The Council of State Governments Justice Center announced the release of Improving Outcomes for People with Mental Illnesses under Community Corrections Supervision: A Guide to Research-Informed Policy and Practice. The Guide reviews the body of recent research on community corrections supervision for people with mental illnesses and translates the findings to help officials develop effective interventions.
While the guide is not focused on housing and homelessness, it does illustrate the intersection of homelessness, incarceration, recidivism and mental illness. Of local jail detainees, 30 percent with mental illnesses, compared with 17 percent without mental illnesses, had been homeless in the year before their arrest.
The guide discusses "supported housing" and housing first as promising interventions.
According to the report, "community corrections officials and their counterparts in the mental health system understand that their target populations are increasingly overlapping and that the need for new approaches has never been greater. Across the country, probation and parole officials are working with jail and prison admin istrators, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and community based treatment providers to develop strategies that maintain public safety while improving outcomes for people with mental illnesses under community corrections supervision. But all too often, these responses are not backed by research, and as
a result, may be less successful than initiatives that incorporate empirically sound interventions. This in turn limits the political support for and sustainability of these efforts."
The U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance, Re-Entry Policy Council and the National Alliance to End Homelessness published a fact sheet on homelessness and prisoner re-entry, click here.
The Urban Institute Justice Policy Center published a report on Prisoner Re-entry in Virginia in 2004. For a copy of the report, click here.
AIDS Housing of Washington created a toolkit “Creating and Implementing Post-Release Housing for Ex-Prisoners.” For a copy of the 2007 toolkit, click here.
