The challenge
Families with children were staying in emergency shelters, and it was unclear whether they most needed services, short-term help or long-term rent support.
The case
In HUD's Family Options Study, 2,282 families, including more than 5,000 children, staying in emergency shelters in 12 communities were randomly assigned between 2010 and 2012 to priority access to a long-term rent subsidy (usually a Housing Choice Voucher), short-term rapid re-housing, transitional housing with intensive services, or usual care. Over three years, the long-term subsidy reduced use of emergency shelters in months 21 to 32 by more than three-quarters and more than halved self-reported homelessness or doubling up. It also reduced family separations, intimate partner violence, psychological distress and food insecurity, and children moved schools less, at a cost 9% higher than usual care. The other options had little effect.
Why it worked
For most families, homelessness turned out to be an economic problem that long-term rent support solves, rather than one that needs psychosocial services first. Families offered a subsidy were slightly less likely to be working, a trade-off the researchers report.
Sources
- Gubits, D., Shinn, M., Wood, M., et al. (2018). What interventions work best for families who experience homelessness? Impact estimates from the Family Options Study. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 37(4), 835–866.
- HUD User. Family Options Study.
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