Rapid ReHousing: An Overview

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• Rapid Re-Housing An Overview
• Welcome Home Addressing Today's Challenges in
  Homeless Services
• June 2, 2009
• www.homewardva.org

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Purpose

• The goal for this presentation is to provide an
  overview of Rapid Re-housing including
• a discussion of key program features,
• Homewards rapid re-housing initiative in the
  Richmond area, and
• a discussion of how rapid re-housing fits into
  HPRP stimulus funds.

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What is Rapid Re-Housing?
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• Rapid re-housing is a service model designed to
  immediately return those who are losing or lost
  their housing back to permanent housing and to
  shorten the length of shelter stays for families
  and individuals.

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Connecting your Communitys Ten Year Plan with
Rapid Re-housing

• Goal One Transform the homeless services
  delivery system to focus on housing stability.
  Develop and sustain a public-private system of
  services and resources for very low income
  persons that enables those experiencing
  homelessness to be rapidly re-housed in
  affordable permanent housing.

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How is Rapid Re-housing Different?
Rapid Re-housing asks
Traditional Models ask
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Our Model for Rapid Re-housing
Goal Families move back into permanent housing
quickly and are connected to community-based
services.
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What Are the Benefits?

• Improved cost effectiveness
• Ability to serve more people
• Increased ability to provide intensive resources
  to those most in need
• Decreased length of stays in homelessness

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Outcomes for Families

• Length of stay in shelter
• Turn-aways from shelters
• Families placed in hotels
• Hennepin County had 50 reduction in average
  length of shelter stay.

• Performance outcomes
• Well-being of children
• Housing retention
• Norfolk had 88 housing retention after 3 months.
  

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Programmatic Features

• Philosophical shift that considers housing
  stability for all families.
• Early housing assessment is necessary to identify
  barriers.
• Homeless services case plans are based on
  findings from housing assessment and
  interventions are focused on helping families
  maintain housing.
• Matching the intensity of services provided to
  the families need(s).
• Other service needs can be addressed after
  families find permanent housing through
  home-based services .

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Partners for Collaboration
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Homewards Collaborative Rapid Re-housing
Demonstration in the Richmond Area
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Key Provisions

• Target population Families with low to moderate
  housing barriers currently in emergency shelter.
• Serve at least 50 families with approximately
  70k for subsidies and 5k for cost associated
  with housing brokerage.
• Based on the Hennepin County Model which relies
  on a coordinating entity using subcontracted
  relationships to execute program functions.
• Homeward will not provide any direct services but
  will convene and coordinate the process to
  implement the grant.

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Desired Project Outcomes

• A reduction in the median length of homelessness
  for families.
• Decrease in the number of families who return to
  shelter after exit.

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Project Components

• Intake and assessment of family housing needs
• Short-term emergency sheltering
• Administration of housing brokerage and placement
  services
• Provision of short-term rental subsidies, when
  needed
• Home-based aftercare and case management
• On-going technical assistance, evaluation, and
  general oversight

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How does this funding relate to the HPRP funds?
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Coordinating Efforts

• Homeward is working with non-profit services
  providers and local governments to ensure that
  stimulus funds are maximized.
• With HPRP Funds and Homewards RRH demonstration,
  our community will be able to
• Prevent families with children from entering into
  homelessness,
• Prevent single adults from entering into
  homelessness,
• Rapidly re-house families with children living in
  emergency shelter into permanent housing,
• Rapidly re-house single adults living in
  emergency shelter into permanent housing,
• Rapidly re-house families with children in
  transitional shelters into permanent housing,
• Rapidly re-house single adults living in
  transitional shelters into housing.

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Thank you!

• If you have additional questions, please contact
  Erika Jones-Haskins, Director of Program
  Initiatives at ejones_at_homewardva.org.