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Life After Transitional Housing for Homeless Families

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Life After Transitional Housing for Homeless Families U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research Visit PD&R’s website www.huduser.org to find this report and others sponsored by HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R). Other services of HUD USER, PD&R’s research information service, include listservs, special interest reports, bimonthly publications (best practices, significant studies from other sources), access to public use databases, and a hotline (800-245-2691) for help accessing the information you need. The contents of this report are the views of the contractor and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or the U.S. Government. Preface i Preface Given the significant investment HUD has made in transitional housing programs since enactment of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs. Transitional Housing has been an important element of the Department’s efforts to respond to the housing needs of homeless families and individuals through a continuum of care. This study examines whether transitional housing makes a difference in the lives of the families it serves and whether it is more effective for some homeless people than others. This study follows 179 families in 36 transitional housing (TH) programs within five communities for one year after leaving the program. FACTORS AFFECTING FAMILY OUTCOMES This study is one of the first to provide information about TH program impact, including details on different aspects of TH programs and their effect, if any, on family outcomes (housing stability, income and employment, and children’s school engagement and emotional health). The study cannot definitively answer whether or not TH programs make a difference in the lives of the families they serve, because it does not include a control group, nor does it have a sample large enough to support detailed analyses of subgroups. Nevertheless, TH programs, and certain characteristics of the programs, were found to be associated with positive outcomes. PROGRAM SIZE Participants in smaller programs were more likely to have their own place at moveout and more likely to live with the same household members at the beginning and end of the follow-up year. Participants in larger programs, in contrast, experienced higher levels of educational attainment at moveout. No other outcome was associated with program size. PROGRAM RESTRICTIVENESS The degree to which programs imposed rules and restrictions on clients did not affect family outcomes. Similarly, being a “low risk program,” that is, one that targets relatively high- functioning families, or a “high risk program” and whether families experienced a very short period of homelessness or were at imminent risk but not homeless when entering TH had no differential impact on family outcomes. No relationship was found between the number of barriers to stability a family faces and how long that family stays in transitional housing or the outcomes of its stay. PATTERNS OF PROGRAM USE: IN SOME RESPECTS, STAYING IN TH LONGER BROUGHT IMPORTANT BENEFITS Longer stays in TH were associated with higher levels of educational attainment and employment at moveout and greater likelihood of continued employment during the follow-up period. Families spending more months in TH were significantly more likely to have a place of Preface ii their own for a whole year after leaving TH. Provider selection of less challenged families may play a role in this finding. In addition to time in TH, receipt of help for some specific issues was associated with better outcomes. For instance, mothers who got help with education and training earned higher wages one year later. HAVING A RENT SUBSIDY Having a rent subsidy at TH departure was crucial for two outcomes: having one’s own place at TH exit and limiting movement of members in and out of the household. However, subsidies had no measurable effect on education or employment outcomes or on children’s outcomes. OTHER INFLUENCES Local unemployment rates and cost of housing had some impact on family outcomes. Even under adverse conditions, though, TH programs may have smoothed out some of the barriers faced by homeless families. Very few personal characteristics of mothers in the sample made a difference for the outcomes examined by the study. And of five housing variables, only length of homelessness made a significant difference, and only on one outcome—the longer homeless, the more likely the family was not to have had its own place during the year following its stay in transitional housing. Personal characteristics played a greater role in education and employment outcomes. A history of addictions and domestic violence affected some outcomes, as did age and being nonwhite. The number of homeless episodes also took its toll, increasing the odds of not working at all during the follow-up year and of having lower wages at 12 months if one did work. OUTCOMES SERVICE USE AND ECONOMIC STABILITY The most-used services for the families studied included case management (91 percent), setting goals (81 percent), primary health care (73 percent), basic food supplies (70 percent), life skills training (66 percent), and employment (62 percent). Virtually all mothers who received services from TH programs found them to be helpful, and a much higher percentage of mothers worked after exiting the programs than had at program entry. Yet graduates of TH remained fragile economically, earning the same low median income of $12,000 at the 12-month follow-up as they had at program entry. A decline in the percentage of mothers receiving TANF, food stamps, and Medicaid a year after program exit may have contributed to this continued economic fragility. As the authors conclude, “A period of time in a transitional housing program does not change the basic reality of poor, relatively under-educated mothers’ earning power.” This is despite the fact that graduates of TH frequently receive program-funded supportive services for up to six months after graduation. Preface iii HOUSING STABILITY Most family “graduates” of transitional housing maintained housing stability for the first year after departure from transitional housing. Eighty-six percent of families leaving TH moved directly from TH to their own places. Three in five mothers lived in their own places for the entire post-TH year. Only four of the families with 12-month interviews became homeless within the year following TH. Family membership was also much more stable in the year after TH, with 86 percent of families living with the same people at the 12-month follow-up as they had upon program exit. FAMILY HEALTH At program graduation, 21 percent of mothers said they had been treated for alcohol abuse and 65 percent said they had been treated for drug abuse. Only five percent of women reported drinking in the year after TH, and only one mother reported drug use in the past six months. While one measure of mothers’ mental health did not change, another suggested that overall mental health problems declined. Children in the study families still had significant issues with level of school engagement, but experienced some positive behavioral changes. TH programs also contributed to family reunification: 42 percent of children not living with the mother when she entered TH rejoined the family during her stay. CONCLUSIONS TH programs appear to help the families who use them to achieve some important goals, such as maintaining stable housing and treating substance abuse. Further, longer stays in TH may give families the opportunity to develop skills that seem to pay off in a higher probability of regular employment. Given the limitations of available data, the study could not determine whether the families would have achieved these same goals without the programs—surely some of them would have done so; but some would not. The study suggests the importance of encouraging more TH programs to target their considerable resources on the families with multiple barriers that would not have been able to accomplish as much on their own. Acknowledgments iv Acknowledgments Many people contributed to making this study a success. The partnership between Planmatics, Inc. and the Urban Institute, prime contractor and subcontractor, respectively, has been mutually supportive and productive. As the principals at the two partner organizations, Martha Burt of the Urban Institute and Lalith deSilva of Planmatics would especially like to thank the following: • At the Urban Institute, Karina Fortuny contributed mightily to the accuracy and completeness of the data from interviews with mothers in families leaving transitional housing, after which she devoted many hours to producing the analyses presented throughout the report. Kate Chambers did the same for the data from conversations with TH program directors. Kate Chambers and Alexandra Fiorillo conducted the interviews with TH program directors. Alexandra Fiorillo and Shinta Herwantoro helped assemble the initial versions of the family interviews, helped pretest them with local families, and persisted through the seemingly endless process of revising and perfecting. Janine Zweig contributed early on to the study design and interview structure. • At Planmatics, Inc., Lalith deSilva orchestrated the work of many people doing many different things. Imesh Wijewardena developed the data entry formats for all family surveys and compiled the original data sets before conveying them
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