Residential Moves Among Housing First Participants

Excerpt

Housing First (HF), which is recognized as an evidence-based practice by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,1 addresses homelessness by offering immediate access to housing while providing ongoing community-based services.2 An important marker of its success has been increased housing stability and retention rates. Randomized controlled trials have found housing stability and retention for HF participants to be between 73% and 80% as compared to usual care, which, depending on the study consisted of access to existing forms of housing assistance and support in the community or programs following a “treatment first” approach that made access to permanent housing conditional on successful treatment adherence, had rates of approximately 30%.2 ^, 3 Furthermore, there has been remarkable consistency across evaluations of HF programs. In a review of eight published studies of Housing First that reported on housing retention and stability during periods that ranged from 1 to 5 years, rates varied from 73% to 88%.4 …