Housing Outcomes of Veterans Receiving Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Services: Implications for Policy and Programs
The past decade has seen a dramatic shift in homeless assistance policy in the United States towards an emphasis on homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing programs. These programs provide time-limited, flexible assistance to help households either maintain their housing or obtain permanent housing as quickly as possible. As such, they stand in direct contrast to more conventional emergency shelter-based approaches to homelessness.
Despite the increasing emphasis on homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing, there is very little research on the outcomes of households receiving such services. To address this gap, this study examines the housing outcomes of U.S. Military Veterans served by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program. Started in fiscal year (FY) 2012, SSVF is VA’s homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing initiative, and is a crucial component of the Department’s strategy to end homelessness among veterans.
The aims of this study are 1) to assess the extent to which Veterans experience an episode of homelessness following their exit from the SSVF program; and 2) to identify Veteran characteristics and SSVF program factors (e.g. length of service, receipt of rental assistance) that are associated with the risk of homelessness subsequent to SSVF exit.
As the only study to date to examine the outcomes of households served by prevention and rapid re-housing programs using national data, this study has important implications for policy and program decisions.
Methods
We use SSVF progam administrative data to select a cohort of 12,259 Veterans who exited the SSVF program nationwide during FY 2012. This cohort is stratified into four groups based on service type (prevention vs. rapid re-housing) and household type (families vs. singles) and tracked prospectively for up to 18 months using several VA administrative data sources to identify the timing and occurrence of episodes of homelessness subsequent to SSVF exit.
Surival analysis methods (Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox proportional hazards regression) are used to examine incidence of homelessness over time and to model the relationship between Veteran characteristics and SSVF program factors and the risk of experiencing an episode of homelessness following SSVF exit.
Results
Depending on the service and household type considered, we find that between 7% and 16% Veterans experienced an episode of homelessness within one year of of exiting SSVF. Veteran characteristics, including age, presence of a disabling condition and a prior history of homelessness are all strong and consistent predictors of risk of homelessness following SSVF exit. By contrast, few SSVF program factors have a significant association with risk of homelessness post-SSVF exit.
Conclusions
The observed low rates of homelessness following SSVF suggest that the large majority of Veterans who participate in the program remain stably housed after they are no longer receiving SSVF assistance. This points to the potential promise of prevention and rapid re-housing based approaches to homelessness. However, future research is needed both to examine the relationship between program factors and program success and, more generally, to help establish the effectiveness of prevention and rapid re-housing approaches.