Diversion: An Effective Response to Crisis of Homelessness National Conference on Ending Homelessness July 18, 2017 Jeff Rodgers Supervisor, Homeless Programs Pierce County Human Services Tacoma, WA

Pierce County, WA COC $12 million in 2016 to housing and services ESG - $370,000 WA State - $3.7 million Local - $4.5 million COC has about 3,050 permanent and temporary beds PIT (2017): 1,762 persons Increase in unsheltered and chronic Coordinated Entry (2016): about 5,400 literally homeless households Population = 840,000 City of Tacoma = 208,000 Median Income = $72,300 Market Rent 2BR = $1,140 Vacancy rate = 3.3% Thank you for the invitation to share our experience today. I am Jeff Rodgers, and I Supervise Homeless Programs in Pierce County. To set context – here’s a little bit about our county: Pierce County is the second largest county in WA; We are located south of Seattle, with a total population of about 840,000 citizens. About a quarter of the population lives in the largest city, Tacoma – the remainder are in small cities or rural unincorporated areas. So we get pretty rural once you leave Tacoma. Pierce County is the COC lead; we also are the lead for the major state and local sources of funding – in total, we allocate about $12 million per year to homeless housing and service programs. Our Continuum of Care operates over 3,000 permanent and temporary beds. - almost half of which are targeted to families with children. In 2017 we counted 1,321 people experiencing homelessness; 504 were unsheltered. As we all know, the PIT is great for tracking trends, but it’s not always the most accurate count of who experiences homelessness, so we also use our Coordinated Entry data to help us understand who is becoming homeless. Last year about 5,400 literally homeless households contacted Coordinated Entry. Our HUD median income is $72,300 for a family of 4, which has increased by about 4% since 2010. Rents, on the other hand, have increased by over 20% since 2010. A lot of that increase comes as a result of people in Seattle moving south to find what they consider to be more affordable rents. As Seattle moves closer to becoming the next San Francisco with respect to housing affordability, the surrounding communities are getting squeezed. And, while I’m sure that an average rent of $1,100 for a 2-bedroom unit sounds like a dream come true here, it is still out of reach for the nearly 70,000 low income households in our County. So we estimate that we need over 50,000 new affordable housing units to meet our need. I say that because we know that we are never going to build enough affordable housing to meet the need. And if we rely on affordable housing to end homelessness, thousands of people will remain homeless in our community. This is a big part of why we have moved past any fantasy that the homeless system alone can end poverty and adopted a crisis response approach to homelessness. And, as I will share today, our crisis response begins with diversion.

Evolution of “Diversion” in Pierce County What Centralized Intake taught us Why we decided to divert families from Centralized Intake Wait List What we learned from our “Diversion” Pilot Why “Diversion” is a cornerstone of our Crisis Response System Why “Diversion” is in quotes… So, over the next few minutes I’ll talk about how we came to re-design our Coordinated Entry system with Diversion as the first step. What the Intake data told us about homelessness Why we decided to Divert families from our Intake wait list What we learned from our Diversion Pilot Why our Crisis response System starts with Diversion And here’s the language caveat – I’m going to refer to this as Diversion here – but in our community, we don’t use the term “diversion” with clients. As you’ll see in a few slides, we offer people a “crisis resolution” conversation, or a “problem solving” conversation. We also refer to it as a “creative conversation.” The emphasis is on conversation – since it’s a dialogue – and not on it being a “program.” But – because Diversion is sort of the industry’s term of art, we use it for presentation purposes.

Then: Centralized Intake Monthly: 150 Assessments System Flow Who’s getting referred to housing Mainly low-barrier families Who’s not Getting Referred Mainly single adults and families with very high barriers How long it’s all taking Many months… or until we lose contact Monthly: 30 Vacancies Opened Centralized Intake in 2012 – it was an early incarnation of what we now think of as Coordinated Entry. It was, quite literally, a central location for people to seek homeless housing and support services. There weren’t many road maps four years ago, so it was a learning and data collection project as much as anything else. CI was originally designed to include both literally homeless and “at risk” households, but demand far out-paced existing resources, so we limited it to literal homelessness (Cat 1 and Cat 4) AND people with 3-day pay or vacate notices. While data collection through CI had a lot of early challenges, we certainly had enough data to get a really clear picture that the system we had designed was clogged – mainly because we built it before right-sizing our housing and services platforms. From a “System Flow” perspective, only about 20% of the people seeking housing were actually getting referrals Mainly families – and mainly low-barrier families Everyone else went on a Wait List - that we euphemistically called a Placement Roster – although the likelihood of getting a placement was pretty low. So the next step was to dig into what was happening with people on the Wait List. Wait List!

Centralized Intake Wait List Lost contact with about 1/3 of the people on the placement roster. Around 20% found housing on their own Only 20% were entering our system Remainder stayed on wait list… for a long time Some – highest barriers - never got a referral There must be a better way! What we found is what led us to pilot a diversion program AND to dramatically alter how we were allocating resources. The Agency that ran CI would call through the Wait List about once every quarter, to update information and to remove people who couldn’t be contacted. That was one of the most important tasks, because it gave us a glimpse into what happened to people while they were waiting for a housing referral: The agency would lose contact with about 1/3 of the people on the placement roster – cell phone disconnected, don’t return calls or come in for assessment Around 20% of people on the list found housing on their own – whether with friends, family or re-establishing a rental on their own. Only 20% enter our system through a housing referral The remainder were long-stayers on the wait list – some of whom, frankly would never get a referral. A couple of big take-aways for us were: The referral system we had designed was favoring families with low-barriers to housing and leaving behind the most vulnerable and highest barrier people – that was not our intent; AND At least 20% - and maybe as many as 50% - of people seeking services were able to resolve their homeless crisis without our assistance. So we started by taking action on those two findings

Now What?!? Dilemma Response Implemented Centralized Intake without Right Sizing System… Yikes! Response Reallocate investments from Transitional Housing to Rapid rehousing Divert households from placement on Wait List Piloted “Diversion” for families – 2014/2015 Engaged our Center for Dispute Resolution to Train Learning Collaborative Data Dashboards 70% Take-Up rate - over 250 families resolved homeless crisis 8% return rate As I mentioned – we made the Rookie mistake of implementing Centralized Intake by focusing on how people ENTER the system, but not on how they EXIT! It was our best thinking at the time, and with analysis, we realized it wasn’t as well-designed as it should be. Within a year or so of starting CI, the data pointed us to some obvious problems and solutions: Most of our system investments were in TH for families – with long lengths of stay, so our system produced very few unit vacancies in comparison to the need. We had RRH programs, but back then the investment in TH out-weighed the investment in RRH So we started to re-allocate investments from TH to RRH – which over time has yielded more program openings. But to have a more immediate impact on how long people waited to get a referral, we started to look at how we could divert people from placement on the wait list. I know that most diversion is from Shelter – in our case, the longest wait list in our system was created at Centralized Intake – so that’s where our focus went. We started in October 2014 by diverting families We partnered with our local Dispute Resolution Center – that was critical- they helped us to develop an approach that is Conversational and really draws on the problem-solving techniques of dispute resolution. Kevin and Angela will talk more about that in their presentation. We also partnered with two local nonprofits to deliver the “diversion” services: one was the agency operating Centralized Intake at the time and the other is an agency that, among other things, had one of the more robust RRH program. We launched a Learning Collaborative for the partners and our County staff so the they could meet monthly to look at data and share what was working, what wasn’t, and what to try next. Keeping the pilot small – with just two agencies - and having the Learning Collaborative were really critical to being able to test approaches and refine them in real time. We developed a data dashboard specific to Diversion that helped us all keep close watch on successes and challenges During the 15 month Pilot period the agencies started conversations with about 700 families; about 500 pursued the conversation through conclusion (we call that the “take-up” rate); of that 500, half successfully found a housing solution. Among those who didn’t, about 30% were placed on the wait list, and we lost contact with 20% As of October 2016, only about 8% of those who identified a housing solution during the Pilot period have come back to our system for services. That’s a better return rate than our RRH programs!

Now: Coordinated Entry In addition to focusing on re-allocating resources to right size our system, we have focused on redesigning the intake process to better align with the best practices of a Coordinated Entry system – and incorporating the diversion conversation as the first step. This slide is a super-simplified depiction of Coordinated Entry in our community: We’ve expanded the “front door” of coordinated entry by engaging our PATH Outreach teams as partners. CE staff also have regular presence in the major overnight shelters At the same time we have expanded access, we have further narrowed eligibility to literal homelessness (Category 1) or fleeing domestic violence (Category 4). The first engagement that everyone has with Coordinated Entry is in the form of the problem solving or crisis resolution conversation. By placing diversion at the front door of our system, we ensure that everyone - families with children, families without, single individuals – everyone - has the opportunity to quickly resolve their homeless crisis. We are also trying to convey a more transparent and honest message about the likelihood of receiving a housing referral. We want people who come to us for assistance to understand what we can do and can’t do, and not leave with false expectations. That transparency – letting people know there are fewer housing openings than people who need them – helps us to encourage people to really dig deep and think about what resources they have in their lives to help them re-establish safe housing quickly. We’ve also implemented an assessment tool based on vulnerabilities and housing barriers so that housing referrals are made based on client need As part of this – we’ve really worked with provider agencies to eliminate all non-funder program rules, so that we are funding a no – or, at a minimum, very low – barrier system of programs Our Coordinated Entry no longer has an endless wait list, but rather prioritization pools sized in accordance with the expected monthly vacancies in our PSH and RRH programs.

Outcomes Through 2016 Over 750 households successfully diverted since October 2014 (out of 2,800 offered diversion) 83% of families take-up offer of diversion vs 6% of single adults Over 50% of all Households who take-up diversion are successful 710 Families and 41 singles Average financial assistance under $900 8% Return Rate since October 2014 Since the Pilot began in October 2014, Over 750 households successfully diverted - out of 2,800 who were offered problem solving conversation – so that looks like a pretty low success rate – but it’s not – once we understand it. Over the last two years we have learned that families with children are more likely to want to engage in conversation about a quick resolution to their housing crisis – 83% of families that come to Coordinated Entry take the opportunity to have a conversation about a quick resolution to their crisis, compared to only 6% of single adults. That said, over 50% of everyone who engages in the diversion conversation successfully regains housing – and here again, we find a really big disparity between families and single adults – the higher take-up rate among families means that more families are exiting homelessness to permanent housing with a very light touch. In total, 710 families have re-established Permanent Housing, compared to just 41 singles When we talk about successful Exits to Housing, that is any exit to a housing situation that is, first and foremost, safe. 70% Re-established Rentals (524 HHs) (Blue) 15% Shared Housing (113) (Orange) 9% Doubled-Up (71) (Grey) 6% Relocated (42) (Yellow) The average level of financial assistance in 2016 was under $900, which is down from the average in 2015 of $1,200. Remember – we are helping people who are literally homeless. Angela and Kevin will talk more about how the financial assistance piece is handled – I’ll say that heavy reliance on financial assistance will make this approach unsustainable and ineffective if the goal is to help as many families as possible. What we are really excited about is the return rate – just 7% Return Rate since Oct 2014 – which is less than half the return rate from RRH. We think some of this is driven by the resilience and motivation of families to regain and keep their housing. The majority of families are experiencing their first episode of homelessness, so there is recent successful history of keeping housing even under the most precarious of circumstances – our approach draws on their inherent resources to navigate housing and retain it, even if rent-burdened.

A Word About Money… Flexibility of Funding Sources – unusual expenses (car repair, child care, buying groceries for a roommate, etc.) Local Revenues Private Funds Could use SSVF or ESG (we don’t) Financial Assistance Not the Only Tool $$s Help with Diversion Reliance on $$s may impact creativity $$s Finite - Creativity is Infinite So – a quick word about money… Having a flexible source of funds is important – it allows the staff, well, flexibility to help a family resolve their crisis quickly without need for long-term support. We have used a combination of local funds and private resources, but I’m told that ESG and SSVF funds can also be used with some flexibility. Private Funds - BMGF Could use SSVF or ESG (we don’t) But don’t lead with financial assistance. As the Funder, our concern is stretching our dollars to assist the most people we possibly can, so we’ve had some pretty lively debates among my staff – The dollars spent on diversion are less than RRH, but they are largely similar in nature – 1st and last month rent, security deposits. We know that when the agencies have held back on funds, fewer people have been diverted. Remember – we are diverting literally homeless families and individuals, and most people are re-establishing rentals. That said, reliance on $$s may impact creativity – There are diversion programs that use little if any funding – most of those are stabilizing families at risk, where we’re working with people who have lost their housing So our internal debate about use of funds continues – because, the dollars are finite, but our creativity is infinite