Homelessness Interventions in Georgia: Rapid Re-Housing, Transitional Housing, and the Likelihood of Returning to Shelter

Why Do Homeless Families Exit and Return the Homeless Shelter? Factors Affecting the Risk of Family Homelessness in Salt Lake County (Utah, United States) as a Case Study

“…Longitudinal research since the late 1990s began to include economic condition factors in predicting the probability of homeless families exiting from or returning to homelessness. By investigating structural effects on the risk of homelessness through case studies of large metropolitan cities with data available, many studies now argue that structural factors are more directly associated with the risk and causes of exiting from or recurring family homelessness than individual factors [4,39].…”

“…Many quantitative studies found that homeless families who moved to transitional housing or received housing services with subsidies were less likely to return to the shelter. However, much of the literature also argues that homeless families who received housing services had tendencies to stay longer in the shelter until they got opportunities to enroll in housing service programs [14,39]. Bassuk and Geller reviewed quantitative studies about the role of housing and services on exiting homelessness and confirmed the existing finding that access to housing vouchers or subsidies play a significant role in increasing residential stability [32].…”

Association of Temporary Financial Assistance With Housing Stability Among US Veterans in the Supportive Services for Veteran Families Program

“…Three quasi-experimental studies found that rapid rehousing was associated with a decrease in returns to an emergency shelter. 42 , 43 , 44 The Family Options Study 45 , 46 was a large randomized clinical trial of rapid rehousing compared with 3 alternatives: usual care, transitional housing, and permanent housing subsidy. At both 20 months 45 and 37 months, 46 housing outcomes for rapid rehousing were no different from outcomes for usual care or transitional housing but were worse than outcomes for permanent housing subsidy, a more robust form of intervention.…”

policies to Reduce and Prevent Homelessness: What We Know and Gaps in the Research

“…Rodriguez and Eidelman (2017) used propensity score matching to examine the impact of households that received rapid re‐housing, transitional housing, or emergency shelter services in Georgia. Compared to an initial assignment to emergency shelter, transitional housing and rapid re‐housing recipients had a lower likelihood of returning to an emergency shelter within two years.…”