Rapid Re-housing Performance Benchmarks

Rapid Re-housing Performance Benchmarks
An Introduction to the Rapid Re-housing Performance Benchmarks and Program Standards Samantha Batko, National Alliance to End Homelessness

Session Overview Overview of Rapid Re-housing
Introduction to Rapid Re-housing Performance Benchmarks & Program Standards Program Philosophy & Design Standards Housing Identification Standards Rent and Move-In Assistance Standards Case Management and Service Standards Performance Benchmarks Questions Overall introduction to the purpose, use, and the process of the development of the RRH Performance Benchmarks and Standards Overview of the what the core components of the RRH Standards are Provide details on each section of the Performance B & S Wrap up with Performance Benchmarks

POLL Rapid Re-housing Provider
Who Is In The Room? Rapid Re-housing Provider Provider interested in or imminently starting an RRH Project Private or local government funding agency Technical Assistance Provider POLL

What is your familiarity with Rapid Re-housing?
POLL What is your familiarity with Rapid Re-housing? I am a new staff person/agency to RRH I have provided RRH services for about 1 year I have provided RRH services for 2+ years POLL

An Overview of Rapid Re-housing

National Alliance to End Homelessness
Why Rapid Re-housing? What we know about causes and dynamics of homelessness What we know about shelter and transitional housing What we’ve learned so far about RRH Because they key to RRH is that it is rapid, and helps people end their homelessness as quickly as possible, this means that they spend less time in shelters. This has the system impact of creating flow – that is, people move through shelter faster, which frees of crisis beds for others in need, reducing and eliminating waitlists. The swiftness of moving households out of homelessness and into housing Reduces the negative impacts of long-term homelessness Which then Improves household outcomes Research also shows that RRH Increases a household's self-sufficiency, as their income increases once they are in housing We also see that communities that increase rapid rehousing show Decreases in overall homelessness National Alliance to End Homelessness

This is an infographic the Alliance developed to make RRH easy to explain and understand: The core components of Rapid Rehousing help households FIND HOUSING, help Households PAY for housing, and help households STAY in housing.

Housing Identification is the first core component of rapid re-housing, the goal of which is to find housing for program participants quickly. Program staff recruit landlords with units in the communities and neighborhoods where program participants want to live and negotiate with landlords to help program participants access housing. The recruitment of landlords is essential to program participants having rapid access to permanent housing from the moment they enter the program. IT is critical that staff serve the function of recruiting landlords, and ideally, have dedicated staff that are housing locators and have specialized skills in housing identification and landlord recruitment. The more partnerships with landlords the program has developed, the more opportunities program participants have to rapidly obtain permanent housing. As landlords experience the benefits of a partnership with rapid re-housing programs, they may give preference to program participants or even be willing to occasionally consider some reduction in rent or an occasional late payment. Without landlord screening concessions, many program participants would be denied many housing opportunities due to their income, housing, credit and/or criminal histories. Landlords are often willing to waive some or all screening requirements because the program staff will communicate with the landlord and tenant and will resolve tenancy problems as soon as possible if and when they arise. Some programs also promise double security deposits to persuade landlords to rent to tenants who appear to be higher risk. At the same time, the program must also be knowledgeable about landlord responsibilities to protect households served by the program. Beyond landlord recruitment, programs must also match households to appropriate housing—housing for which they will be able to pay the rent after financial assistance ends; that is decent; and, that is safe, including meeting the particular safety needs of survivors of domestic violence. Effective programs accomplish this by providing a variety of housing options in a variety of neighborhoods and by serving as a resource to households during the housing search, location, and application processes. Again, it is important that staff are identifying housing, negotiating with landlords, and helping households through the application process rather than sending participants out to do this by themselves. IF a household chooses to search for units themselves, staff should check in on their progress and guide them if they are struggling.

Rent and Move-In Assistance is the second core component of rapid re-housing, the goal of which is to provide short-term help to households so they can pay for housing. Activities under this core component include paying for security deposits, move-in expenses, rent, and utilities. The intent of the rent and move-in assistance component of rapid re-housing is to enable the quick resolution of the immediate housing crisis. The majority of RRH participants will be able to maintain housing with short-term rent assistance. Programs should start out by assuming households, even those with zero income or other barriers, will succeed with a minimal subsidy and support rather than a long subsidy, and extend these if/when necessary. Households with higher housing barriers or no income may need assistance for different depths or durations, but such households should still be assisted in immediately attaining permanent housing and the large majority will still successfully exit to permanent housing. Programs should be attentive to the ability of a household to maintain housing once subsidy ends, but should not be entirely constrained by attempts to reach a rent burden of only 30 percent of a participant’s income—a standard that is not achieved by the majority of low-income and poor households. Instead, they should recognize that once housed, the RRH households will be much better positioned to increase their incomes and address their other needs. Additionally, by not over-serving households, programs can maximize the impact of available resources to serve the largest number of people possible. The flexible nature of the rapid re-housing program model enables agencies to be responsive to the varied and changing needs of program participants and the community as a whole. National Alliance to End Homelessness

Rapid re-housing case management and services is the third core component of rapid re-housing. The goals of rapid re-housing case management is to help participants obtain and move into permanent housing, support participants to stabilize in housing, and connect them to community and mainstream services and supports if needed. Rapid re-housing is a short-term crisis intervention. So, the intent of rapid re-housing case management is not to build a long-term services relationship, but instead to assist a household in accessing and stabilizing in a housing unit. Because of that, case management focuses on navigating barriers to tenancy and helping participants to build a support system. Help households find permanent housing and negotiate lease Help resolve issues that impede access to housing Provide time-limited services that help households stabilize in housing Be available to help resolve crises Connect households to resources to help them achieve short and long-term goals Services are client-directed and voluntary National Alliance to End Homelessness

Goals of the Design of Rapid Re-Housing
Rapid re-housing is designed to help individuals and families: quickly exit homelessness return to permanent housing in the community not become homeless again in the near term First, let’s talk about why rapid re-housing is an effective model for helping your community to end homelessness. Communities around the country have transformed their response to homelessness through rapid re-housing. The model Increases the number of people communities are able to serve IT is a very cost-effective model, 5 families can be rapidly re-housed ($6,578 per family) for what it costs to house one family via transitional housing ($32,557 per family). - Family Options Study Reduces the overall number of people experiencing homelessness Helps people exit homelessness quickly to permanent housing and not return to shelter Rapid re-housing uses a Housing First approach: Through RRH, People experiencing homelessness obtain permanent housing quickly without preconditions. It is important to recognize that Housing First is based on the principle that Survival and safety needs will often drive people’s behavior until these needs are met. Fundamentally, It is difficult to focus on longer term goals if people don’t have housing. Housing serves as a platform for people to be better able to address other, “higher” needs.

SSVF National Data Sheltered and unsheltered homeless Veterans (at entry) who exited SSVF rapid re-housing services had similar success rates in obtaining permanent housing: 78 percent (sheltered) exited to PH 81 percent (unsheltered) exited to PH The median length of stay in SSVF among the 51,474 Veterans who exited during FY 2014 was 3 months (91 days). The cost of SSVF rapid re-housing was about $3,000 per household. 10 percent of families returned to homelessness after one year, and 14 percent of individuals.

Take Away: 67% of veterans RRH participants from different homeless situations with no income and no VASH voucher did not vary significantly from those veterans who had $2,001+ a month in income (difference = 14% difference) National Alliance to End Homelessness

Take-Away: Little difference between each household type in returns to homelessness between veterans who had received prevention assistance versus RRH HH w/ children – 2% difference (95% and 93%) Single veterans – 2% difference (90% and 88%) National Alliance to End Homelessness

Introduction to the Standards and Performance Benchmarks
Purpose of developing RRH standards Process of developing RRH standards Provider feedback Benchmarks based on current practice – how to measure your performance Developed by National Alliance to End Homelessness and partners Endorsed by HUD, USICH, VA Before we start talking about rapid re-housing and the specifics of the standards and benchmarks, we want to provide some background about the creation and development of these benchmarks and standards. In 2014, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to the core components of rapid re-housing: Housing Identification, Rent and Move-In Assistance, and Rapid Re-Housing Case Management and Services. The purpose of these core components was to clearly define the essential activities of a rapid re-housing program. However, the components do not define what is considered to be a good rapid re-housing program. The purpose behind the standards is to provide details on both what a rapid re-housing program should achieve and what the programs staffing, policy and activities should be in order to be considered an effective program. The benchmarks and standards document that is presented today provides benchmarks on the essential areas of performance and qualitative program standards for each of the rapid re-housing core components that are likely to help a program meet the performance benchmarks. The standards are also intended to help standardize practice across all RRH programs in a community, no matter how they are funded. The performance benchmarks and standards are based on what is currently considered promising practice by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, (VA), (HUD), (USICH), Abt Associates and other federal technical assistance providers. They were also developed with input and feedback from nationally recognized, high-performing rapid re-housing providers from across the country in various types of housing markets. As rapid re-housing practice continues to evolve, these program standards will be updated. They are intended to be a living tool to help current and potential rapid re-housing providers, funders, and other stakeholders design and identify rapid re-housing programs that are or are likely to be the most successful in ending homelessness for individuals and families. To note, as RRH standards are implemented, they evolve and are updated as a result.

How to Use the Standards
Funder, State Leaders, and Coalitions Use standards to increase the effective implementation of rapid re-housing development of Requests For Proposals (RFPs) for a variety of funding streams set performance and outcome goals for program evaluate applications for new rapid re-housing programs review current program performance. SSVF Providers Use standards to improve their own rapid re-housing practice and to evaluate possible rapid re-housing partner agencies Continuums of Care (CoCs) Use standards during the process of developing written standards for how they plan to administer assistance through coordinated assessment Since the standards developed do not have an accompanying accreditation process, we want to let you know how you can use the standards depending on what your role is. (insert some chatty lines about who is in the room) For those of you who are Funders, or State Agencies, you can use the performance benchmarks and program standards to increase the effective implementation of rapid re-housing. These standards can be used in the development of Requests For Proposals (RFPs) for a variety of funding streams and to set performance and outcome goals for programs. You can evaluate applications for new rapid re-housing programs, determine which organizations are best suited to provide rapid re-housing, and review current program performance. Grantees can use these standards to design and implement effective rapid re-housing practice. the performance benchmarks can be used to to evaluate performance and possible rapid re-housing partner agencies. These benchmarks and standards provide clear goals and activities for programs interested in improving practice. CoC’s can also use these standards during the process of developing written standards for how they plan to administer assistance through coordinated entry. CoCs must develop standards for providing assistance including prioritizing who receives rapid re-housing and how much rent participants in a rapid re-housing program must pay. While recommendations for such standards as required by HUD are not included in this document, these standards can help inform their development and ensure that rapid re-housing programs in CoCs are applied effectively and efficiently.

Rapid Re-Housing Performance Benchmarks and Program Standards
30 days from enrollment in rapid re-housing to move into permanent housing 80% of exits from rapid re-housing are to permanent housing 85% of households do not become homelessness again within a year 53 Standards 3 Core Components Program Design and Philosophy

P = Program Philosophy and Design Standards H = Housing Identification Standards R = Rent and Move-in Assistance Standards C = Case Management and Services Standards As I mentioned, program standards are included for each of the core components of rapid re-housing. Throughout this presentation and in the performance benchmarks and program standards document, you will see that each program standard is denoted by a letter and a number. That letter corresponds to the core component of rapid re-housing that the standards is associated with: H for Housing Identification, R for rent and move-in assistance, and C for case management and Services. You will see that there is a 4th section of the program standards that is denoted by a P. This section is the program philosophy and design section.

Principles Rationale Standards Program Staff Program Policies Program Activities Today, we will be detailing highlights of the program standards are detailed below for each of the three core components and the philosophy and program design section. For a full list of the standards, you should review the full performance benchmarks and standards document. In today’s presentation and in the standards document, you will see that the standards are accompanied by principles and a rationale on which the standards are based. The document also includes examples of how a program may meet those standards. Before we get into the details of the standards, I will provide a quick review of what rapid re-housing is and then present on the program philosophy and design standards. I want to note that this is a very broad overview. If you are interested in going into greater depth, I recommend you visit our website ( and take a look at our RRH Know How Series (full of webinars, blogs, infographics, fact sheets, and toolkits). These resources provide a deeper look at each of the components to help you strengthen your RRH practice.

Program Philosophy and Design
The program philosophy and design standards are toward the end of the document but I want to start with them here because they were written in order to provide more guidance on the broader role of RRH program should play in a community’s systemic response in ending homelessness.

Program Philosophy and Design: Principles
Programs should take a Housing First approach and should not screen out households based on a score on an assessment tool or criteria that are assumed, but not shown, to predict successful outcomes, such as a minimum income threshold, employment, absence of a criminal history, evidence of “motivation,” etc. Participants have all the rights and responsibilities of typical tenants and should sign a standard lease agreement. There are four principles that should be employed when designing a RRH program however, I want to touch on two key principles today.. Assessment tools serve as helpful guides to prioritize households and if someone scores for an intervention that is not available, like PSH, RRH may be the next best intervention to try.

Program Philosophy and Design: Policies & Activities
P1. Staff regularly trained to basic program philosophy of RRH P3. Well-defined, written screening process using consistent and transparent decision criteria P4. Eligibility criteria does not require: sobriety, commitment to participate, or other “predictive” criteria P8. Participate in local HMIS P9. Participate in and accept referrals from Coordinated Entry Not exhaustive – see document P3: Criteria does not include screening possible participants out for income or lack of income P4: Programs should not screen out those individuals who have barriers that we may consider would lead them to be unsuccessful in achieving housing stability (a willingness to engage the program and work on a self-directed housing plan is appropriate eligibility criteria (there are no accurate ways to assess or predict one’s success) P8: Collect all required data standards and take steps to ensure quality data entry P9: Participate in CE and efforts to improve efficiency and quality of referrals when necessary

Core Components Standards
Housing Identification

Reality of persons experiencing homelessness:
Physically and emotionally exhausted Extreme levels of stress Difficulty addressing things needed to apply for housing (i.e.: unpaid utility bill, application fee, etc.) and conducting interview with landlord (i.e. brings children with you, emotionally fragile)

Housing Identification: Standards
A rapid re-housing program’s staff should help households access units that are desirable and sustainable. Program staff should actively recruit and retain landlords and property managers willing to rent to program participants who may otherwise fail to pass typical tenant screening criteria. Program staff should help participants to secure shared housing including, including negotiating landlord approval, shared rent, etc. Delicate balance between participant choice and the limits imposed by lack of income or background (criminal, credit). Recruit numerous, even hundreds of landlords in a variety of neighborhoods that will rent to participants despite having a background with blemishes Landlords may be attracted to a program where they know that they, as the landlord, are supported along with the client

Tenant Screening Barriers Why do landlords screen tenants out?
Rapid re-housing providers are working to return people to housing as quickly as possible To do so, they investigate, and help people overcome, their barriers to housing There are two types of housing barriers: barriers to obtaining housing, and barriers to maintaining housing Barriers to obtaining housing are “tenant screening barriers” – things a landlord is going to look at when deciding to rent to a tenant Barriers to maintaining housing are things that interfere with the ability to comply with the lease 27

Tenant Screening Barriers
Evictions Criminal History Rental History Income Household size Documents 28

The landlord is a vital partner to a RRH program. The RRH provider must be responsive to landlords to preserve and develop those partnerships for the purposes future housing placements. The RRH provider should incentivize landlords to rent to program participants by offering tenancy supports that will make the landlord overlook barriers to tenancy such as evictions, poor rental history, zero to low income, criminal records, and poor credit histories. Incentives: Cut checks to LLs quickly Create a “security reserve” or “damage mitigation fund” to pay for damages to a unit in order to lessen LLs hesitation to rent to a participant lacking strong rental history Hold open units as soon as the become available even before a participant is ready to move in by paying rent on an empty unit Offer shared housing for participants Double security deposits

Designate staff whose responsibility is to identify and recruit landlords and encourage them to rent to homeless households served by the program. Staff should have the knowledge, skills, and agency resources to understand landlords’ perspectives, understand landlord and tenant rights and responsibilities, and negotiate landlord supports. Ideally, a program has dedicated staff for whom housing identification and landlord engagement is the primary responsibility rather than making this the case manager’s responsibility. Designated Housing Specialist (full-time, experience and skills set in real estate, property management) or intentionally make part of case managers job description, ensure they are trained in housing focused skills, reduce case load to make space for this critical task. Clearly defined, management supported role Ideas/Strategies: Landlord Advisory Committee Shadow Landlord for a day Hiring someone who is a landlord

Program Policies H4. Program offers a standard, basic level of support to all landlords who lease to program participants…. Program can negotiate additional supports, as needed, on a case-by-case basis. At a minimum… H4a. Respond quickly (within one business day)… H4b. Seek to resolve conflicts… H4c. Whenever possible, negotiate move-out terms… LLs have to benefit as much as the participant If have to negotiate move out terms – your saving the participants and LLs thousands of dollars in avoiding eviction. Need to visit/check-in regularly with your participant and the LLs to stay on top of any issues before they develop

Rent and Move-In Assistance (Financial) Rent and Move-In Assistance is the second core component of rapid re-housing, the goal of which is to provide short-term help to households so they can pay for housing. Activities under this core component include paying for security deposits, move-in expenses, rent, and utilities. Seeking to provide a quick resolution of the immediate housing crisis.

Rent and Move-in Assistance: Standards
Principles Rent and move-in assistance should be flexible, individualized, and tailored to the varying and changing needs of a household while providing the assistance necessary for households to move immediately out of homelessness and to stabilize in permanent housing. As I said earlier, The intent of the rent and move-in assistance component of rapid re-housing is to enable the quick resolution of the immediate housing crisis. The majority of RRH participants will be able to maintain housing with short-term rent assistance. Programs should start out by assuming households, even those with zero income or other barriers, will succeed with a minimal subsidy and support rather than a long subsidy, and extend these if/when necessary. Households with higher housing barriers or no income may need assistance for different depths or durations, but such households should still be assisted in immediately attaining permanent housing and the large majority will still successfully exit to permanent housing.

Provide assistance necessary for participants to move immediately out of homelessness and to stabilize in permanent housing. Provide participants with the minimum necessary to maximize the number of households able to be served. National Alliance to End Homelessness

Program Staff R4. A progressive approach is used to determine the duration and amount of rent assistance. Financial assistance is not a standard “package” and is flexible enough to adjust to households’ unique needs and resources, especially as participants’ financial circumstances or housing costs change. Programs should use a progressive approach to determine the duration and amount of rent assistance. Again, financial assistance should be flexible enough to adjust to households’ unique needs and resources. For example, if one person in the household loses their job, financial assistance can be flexed up to help that household maintain housing Understand that this is difficult to do… Protecting households while at the same time ensuring you don’t decimate the agency’s budget. Requires balancing, re-balancing, and re-balancing your budget, likely monthly or more often. Important to also determine who approves of the financial assistance modifications to the budget. It is often found that when the decision is left to the case manager, they may tend to be more generous than is actually necessary, If left only to administration, may be more rigid and influenced by cutting costs. Combination of approval is best practice.

Program Activities R5. Program provides when needed financial assistance for housing costs, which may include rental deposits, first month’s rent, last month’s rent, temporary rental assistance, and/or utility assistance. RRH is meant to help households overcome the hurdle of moving into housing, which can be very costly. financial assistance should cover basic housing costs, which may include rental deposits, first month’s rent, last month’s rent, temporary rental assistance, and/or utility assistance.

Program Activities R8. Program helps participants meet basic needs at move-in, such as securing basic furnishings for an apartment, including mattresses and basic kitchen items such as a pot for cooking and utensils. R9. Transition off financial assistance coordinated with case management to assume and sustain their housing costs Households will also need move-in assistance, and help securing basic furnishings for an apartment, including mattresses and basic kitchen items such as a pot for cooking and utensils. Standard 9: Choosing a smaller unit, supplement income with food pantry, work with financial advisor to consolidate debt, carefully end rental assistance so they don’t fall off the cliff Having an awareness of other organizations, agencies, business community faith based communities to provide these resources as often federal and state funds do not cover these

Rapid Re-Housing Case Management and Services Housing Identification `

Case Management and Services: Standards
Obtain and Move into Permanent Housing Support Stabilization in Housing Support Stabilization in Housing Close the Case Goal of Case Management and services is to: Obtain and move into housing to support participants to stabilize in housing and connect them to mainstream services and supports, if need. Shift from traditional case management supports – an area where we normally see shifts needing to take place – i.e. changing job descriptions and narrow their focus of what case management activities are. Initially CM in RRH is assisting participant in obtaining and moving into new housing unit. Case managers should assist in resolving or mitigating those tenant screening barriers we discussed earlier. These are barriers that are not barriers that a person is not ready for housing but those that a LL would use to screen a participant out. (I.e.: going over lease provisions, expectations of being a good neighbor, etc.). After move-in, case management should become home based, focused on stabilizing the participant in that housing. RRH may be short time however, time should be focused on participant based on their needs and requests for assistance, making sure you are focusing on what they need and not overloading them on case management services Close the case when participant is no longer going to be imminently homeless, likely still struggling but stabilized and able to work on figuring out how to maintain housing should end. Case management can still continue after financial assistance ends if it makes sense and requested by household. Household able to reach out and request more assistance National Alliance to End Homelessness

RRH case management should be client-driven and voluntary. RRH case management should be flexible in intensity—offering only essential assistance until or unless the participant demonstrates the need for or requests additional help. RRH case management uses a strengths-based approach to empower clients. RRH case management reflects the short-term nature of the rapid re-housing assistance… Focused on short term, achievable goals that household wants and needs - given that household normally under extreme stress with housing crisis. Difficult to focus on longer term goals. Can focus on these once stabilized in housing and appropriate CM should be flexible and strength based – help build on strengths (go into a bit later) of the household to build confidence within that they can succeed. Being flexible allows CM to respond to what the need is, not assume that it’s intensive from the beginning, can always flex up when necessary and requested. Home-based CM helps to accomplish this Focuses on housing retention and connecting people to supports outside the program

Program Staff C1. Case manager’s job descriptions direct case managers to focus on housing and to use strengths-based practices focused on participant engagement and meeting the unique needs of each household. C2. In programs that have specialized staff that conduct housing location, case managers work closely with housing locator staff to match the client to an appropriate unit as quickly as possible. Job descriptions are important because of the shift to RRH based case management and if coming from an experience in more traditional case management, having a clearly defined job description is helpful and make clear their objectives Having a case manager and housing locator staff person work closely together allows the CM to share insights regarding participants needs and allows the housing locator staff to make better matches for that household

Case Management and Services Standards
Program Policies C4. Except where dictated by the funder, program participants direct when, where, and how often case management meetings occur. Meetings occur in a participant’s home and/or in a location of the participant’s choosing whenever possible. C9. Program has clearly defined policies and objective standards for when case management should continue and end. These guidelines are flexible… C9 - . Case conferencing is a good tool to help determine when appropriate to close a case

Performance Benchmarks
Now that we’ve covered all of the program standards, we get to the why portion of today’s presentation. Why should you do all of the things we’ve just been discussing and the answer is simple: so that you can achieve high performance. So, next we’ll detail what we consider to be “high performance” for a rapid re-housing program.

It is important to remember that rapid re-housing is a Housing First intervention and programs should not be screening out households based on criteria that are assumed to predict successful outcomes, such as income, employment, criminal history, mental health history, medical history, or evidence of “motivation.” The benchmarks are based on performance data of programs that do not screen households out on the basis of the above barriers. Measure performance using HMIS Before doing that, just some quick reminders: As was mentioned in the program philosophy and design section as well as the core component sections of the presentations, rapid re-housing is a housing first intervention that does not screen out households. As that is the case, the performance benchmarks I will present on are based on performance data and incorporate feedback from programs that do not screen out households. If you are not screening out these households, you should still be able to meet these benchmarks Also, one of the program philosophy and design standards is that a program participate fully in HMIS, unless prohibited from doing so as a victim service provider, in which case an alternative, equivalent method should be used. All of the performance benchmarks can be measured using data in a community’s HMIS, but the accuracy and value of the data in the performance benchmarks will be impacted by the quality of data and coverage of the local HMIS. When implementing these performance benchmarks, you should be attentive to all of these issues. It may require you to go beyond looking at just the performance benchmarks but looking at data quality and the populations the program may be serving

Reminder: A community may not yet have any programs that meets these benchmarks. Set alternate performance goals for the purposes of comparison between programs Set alternative goals for performance improvement, while programs work to achieve these benchmarks Say you’re funder and you want to use these benchmarks to select a RRH program in the community, you may not have any community providers who meets these benchmarks currently, however, you can use the benchmarks for goal setting or comparison purposes between programs If you’re a RRH program that is meeting, say one or two but not three of the benchmarks, the different benchmarks and your performance on those benchmarks may point to areas for improvement in your program

RRH’s three primary goals: Reduce the length of time program participants spend homeless, Exit households to permanent housing, and Limit returns to homelessness within a year of program exit. Ok, onto the performance benchmarks: Ultimately the effectiveness of a rapid re-housing program is determined based on a program’s ability to accomplish the model’s three primary goals: 1) Reduce the length of time program participants spend homeless, 2) Exit households to permanent housing, and 3) Limit returns to homelessness within a year of program exit. I’m going to walk through the benchmarks we’ve set for each of those goals.

Performance Benchmark #1: Reduce the length of time program participants spend homeless
To meet this performance benchmark, households served by the program should move into permanent housing in an average of 30 days or less This measure is the average length of time between the date when an individual/family is identified as having entered a RRH program (HMIS RRH program entry date – allows for an early entry date than the move-in date – i.e. eligibility date)) to when they move into PH (HMIS residential move-in date). Goal is to identify the date of their enrollment into the RRH program and the date they entered into their housing. This measure is only calculated for those households that move into a PH destination and does not include those who have not yet moved in or moved into a non-PH destination. PH may include private, unsubsidized housing; subsidized housing; PSH, or housing shared with friends/family in a sustainable living situation (one that should not be categorized as temporary. PH does not include shelter, TH, jail, prison, or a treatment facility. Primary opportunity for RRH program to impact how long a household is homeless is the speed with which it is able to identify and assist households access appropriate housing options. Activities that assist in meeting this benchmark are those that we covered in the Housing Identification section of this presentation. It should be noted that if you have poor data quality on any of these measures (i.e. HMIS program entry or residential move-in date) you may want to use other measures as proxies (i.e. if you have a well developed CE system, if you wanted to more fully understand the dynamics of referral and entry, you might look at this from your CE referral date to the RRH move-in date. If you don’t have good move-in date quality data and running a RRH program out of your shelter, you could substitute shelter exit date for your residential move-in date.

Performance Benchmark #2: Permanent Housing Success Rates
To meet this performance benchmark, at least 80 percent of households that exit a RRH program should exit to permanent housing This measure is calculated by taking the number of households who were in permanent housing when they exited the RRH program (HMIS RRH program exit date and destination at exit) divided by all of the households who exited the RRH program regardless of destination over the same period of time. This figure should be calculated for households exiting the RRH program over the preceding 12 month period. Programs which have not been operating for 12 months will have to calculate it for a shorter period of time or not meet this standard. A program working on performance improvement may wish to measure this several times for shorter intervals in order to see what progress they have made. RRH programs can impact the performance rate through a combination of securing appropriate housing and effective case management and services. PH may include private, unsubsidized housing; subsidized housing; PSH, or housing shared with friends/family in a sustainable living situation (one that should not be categorized as temporary. PH does not include shelter, TH, jail, prison, or a treatment facility.

Performance Benchmark #3: Returns to Homelessness
To meet this performance benchmark, at least 85 percent of households that exit a RRH program to permanent housing should not become homeless again within a year. This benchmark is typically measured by examining HMIS data from homeless programs across the entire community to determine whether people who successfully exit from the RRH program to PH returned to homelessness, meaning an unsheltered location, emergency shelter, TH, SH, within 12 months of exiting. This measure of returns to homelessness tracks the percentage of households who do not experience a subsequent episode of homelessness. If a household receives some type of emergency or permanent housing assistance but does not experience another episode of homelessness, they should be considered a household that did not return to homelessness for the purpose of this performance benchmark. Programs operating for less than a year will not be able to meet this benchmark. Also, to calculate this measure programs must have access to homeless system data for all other programs in the community (open data system) or the ability to access an HMIS report from the community’s HMIS lead agency. If in a community with no open data system or adequate HMIS coverage (i.e. 80 percent of programs entering data) and for a RRH provider who is also a DV survivor provider, this measure can be calculated using an alternative method to document the program’s ability to meet the standards such as follow-up with a representative sample of households that exit to PH.

RESOURCES Rapid Re-housing Performance Benchmarks and Program Standards Rapid Re-housing “Know-How” Series Rapid Re-housing: A History and Core Components

Center for Capacity Building thecenter@naeh.org
Questions Center for Capacity Building Samantha Batko #Q1. When should the 30 days begin? A1 – designed a measure that all community’s could track (i.e. RRH program entry date). If want to capture more robust data on when household entered into RRH program, could track referral date from CE, however, not all communities can do this, See RRH Evaluation and Implementation Toolkit #Q2. Requirements for federal funding – intended to apply to any RRH funded by any sources. Standards do not conflict with federal guidance on what RRH is and does. In fact, they go further, i.e. ESG and CoC funded RRH allow financial assistance for up to 2 years. These standards employ a progressive engagement model, not guaranteeing RRH assistance but based on need so you can serve more people. #Q3. Standards do not set a case load ratio – in thinking about this a program should consider the mix of populations they are working with (i.e. CH). Look at weighting the case loads based on need.

Rapid Re-housing Performance Benchmarks

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "Rapid Re-housing Performance Benchmarks"— Presentation transcript:

Similar presentations

About project

Feedback

Log in

Auth with social network:

Rapid Re-housing Performance Benchmarks

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "Rapid Re-housing Performance Benchmarks"— Presentation transcript:

Similar presentations

About project

Feedback