‘Supportive housing’ has its supporters and its detractors. The article linked to this post is by supporters. In this case, the supporters are researchers from the Urban Institute. The team studied a group of people who were homeless and who had been assisted to move into supportive housing in Denver, Colorado.
It’s important to point out that such support was not lackadaisical. The program met specific and stringent conditions, which correlated with good results for the participants. For example, when an individual in the study applied to leave the streets, s/he/they moved directly into permanent supportive housing. There was no waiting for months in an emergency shelter, or continuing to live rough.
Also, the people who moved had immediate access to support services which assisted them to adjust to living indoors and to keep their homes once they settled in. They were able to start services that typically have long waiting lists, for example counselling or drug treatment.
The researchers report that the people who moved from the streets to permanent supportive housing were less likely to end up in jail and to cycle between homelessness and jail. They also made less use of expensive health services such as hospital emergency departments. This was particularly true for the study participants who had been chronically homeless (i.e. homeless for an extended period of time).
The evaluation of the Denver supportive housing project is available on the Urban Institute’s web site: Breaking the Homelessness-Jail Cycle with Housing First: Results from the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has an interview with the study’s researchers here: Supportive Housing Can Help End the Homeless-to-Jail Cycle
The supportive housing project in Denver was funded by a ‘Social Impact Bond.’ In general, social impact bonds provide funds from private investors for activities that are predicted to have a specific social impact. Private investors are guaranteed a return on their investment, which is based on the performance of the project. Performance is monitored by an independent third party.
In Denver, the social impact bond, combined with other funding sources (including low-income housing tax credits and housing vouchers) paid for the supportive housing trial over a five year period.
The work that produces social impacts is often done by community agencies and charities. Typically they don’t have spare cash to pay private investors the return on their equity, which is guaranteed by the bond. The payments usually come from a third party (often governments, but also lottery funds).
Both supportive housing and social impact bonds have supporters and detractors. To understand some of the limits of supportive housing, here are a couple of our recent posts: Pushing Supportive Housing To Do Better and Getting The Best From Supportive Housing
And for the debate about social impact bonds, try: Should Private Investment In Public Services Replace Public Spending?
