Families' Length of Stay in the New York City Shelter System: Identifying Factors and Conditions Associated with Long-Term Shelter Stays

Background and Purpose: The New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) administers temporary emergency shelter services to individuals and families with children. Over the past decade, families’ length of stay in shelter has increased, with recent measures indicating that the average family stays close to a year and a half before exiting. At the same time, prior research finds that shelter trajectories vary based on family characteristics and program conditions—suggesting that an overall average may obscure substantial variation in length of stay between families in shelter. Identifying discrete patterns in length of stay across family subgroups may support targeted interventions to reduce overall time in shelter. This study from the Office of Evaluation and Research (OER) in the NYC Department of Social Services adopted a cohort-based approach to analyze length of stay patterns and predictors of long-term stays in shelter among families with children.

Methods Using administrative data, OER followed two cohorts of families (total sample n=14,160) who entered the DHS shelter system in 2019 and 2020 up to two years from their entry date. Data were gathered on shelter placements, including exits and any reentries within 30 days, as well as information about child and family characteristics. A Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was applied to observe the overall distribution of time in shelter and to identify long-term stays as those which exceeded the 75^th percentile distribution. A logistic regression model was designed to explore the association between long-term stays and number of factors, including the demographics of the head of case (e.g., age, gender, education), household characteristics (e.g., family size, pregnancy status) and circumstantial factors (e.g., prior housing history, reason for shelter entry, type of exit from shelter).

Results: This study found that median length of stay in shelter was 209 days—the point at which 50% of families in the sample had exited shelter. Marginal differences were observed between the two cohorts: the 2019 cohort (pre-pandemic) experienced a faster rate of exiting within 30 days, i.e., a relatively higher share of short-term stays, while the 2020 cohort (post-pandemic) experienced a faster rate of exiting after 250 days in shelter, i.e., a smaller share of long-term stays. A number of factors were found to have a significant effect on the likelihood of a long-term stay in shelter, including demographic factors such as the age and educational attainment of the family head, as well as circumstantial factors such as the reason for shelter entry and the type of exit from shelter.

Conclusion and Implications: These findings invite closer attention to the length of stay among different subpopulations, and to the role of policy in shaping pathways to permanent housing in New York City’s family shelter system.