Homelessness Can Be Eliminated if Supportive
Services, Housing are Made Available, Loyola Research Shows

Chicago (December 16, 2003) -A single homeless night on the frightening streets of cities across America might seem reason enough to think finding a place to live is all it takes to end homelessness. But for the majority of people who are homeless, many of whom suffer from mental illness or substance abuse, finding a home is not always enough because the problems that caused them to become homeless in the first place persist. Chances are many of those same people will be forced back to the cold and unforgiving streets they had only just escaped.

However, the cycle of homelessness can be broken if people continue to have access to supportive services, such as case management and employment services, even after they have found a home. A federally-funded demonstration project among 10 service agencies in Chicago has recently proven this fact. Advocates at those agencies also argue that not enough money is available for supportive housing programs, under which people can continue to receive a myriad of services including mental illness counseling, substance abuse treatment and vocational training while living in permanent housing

Supportive housing proponents hope to use the findings of the demonstration project as part of a national drive to establish permanent federal funding for supportive housing programs. The findings of the project were published this fall in a report written by researchers at the Center for Urban Research and Learning at Loyola University Chicago. The report, Breaking the Cycle of Homelessness, is timely as local, state and national efforts to end homelessness gain momentum. Earlier this year, President Bush called on 100 cities including Chicago to submit 10-year plans for ending homelessness.

The demonstration project, which ended in December, 2002, was funded by a $1.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. According to the HHS Web site, 2 to 3 million people, or 1 percent of the U.S. population, experience homelessness each year. Although some people will be homeless for a short period of time, about 200,000 people are chronically homeless. The department also cites a 1999 report, funded by the federal Interagency Council on the Homeless, which said that two-thirds of homeless individuals surveyed reported mental illness, substance abuse disorder or both in the month before being surveyed.

The grant was initiated in 1998 by United Power for Action and Justice to study how the cycle of homelessness might be broken. United Power is an umbrella organization serving all of Chicago. More than 300 community organizations, religious institutions, unions, civic associations, health care providers and homeless service providers and advocates such as the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and the Partnership To End Homelessness, are members of United Power. Heartland Health Outreach, formerly Chicago Health Outreach, administered the grant.

"The president's New Freedom Commission found that permanent supportive housing effectively ends chronic homelessness and achieves substantial cost savings to emergency care facilities. The Department of Health and Human Services should recognize the United Power and other research findings as signposts toward a more humane and more cost-effective approach than warehousing homeless people in shelters," said Heidi Nelson, executive director of Heartland Health Outreach.

United Power commissioned CURL researchers Christine C. George, Ph.D., Chiara Sabina, M.A., and Aparna Sharma, M.A., to evaluate the effectiveness of the supportive housing programs operated under the demonstration. The study's participants, which provide a variety of services and housing options in Chicago and Oak Park, included Deborah's Place, Lakefront Supportive Housing, Beacon Therapeutic, Chicago House, Excellent Way, Franciscan Outreach, Community Counseling Centers of Chicago, Matthew House, Thresholds, and West Suburban Public Action to Deliver Shelter.

These agencies served 2,712 people during the demonstration project, more than half of who were living either in shelters or on the streets at the study's outset. The types of services offered varied from providing transportation cards to clients to helping people apply for housing or offering intensive counseling. Housing options included permanent housing, transitional housing, shelters and no housing provisions.

More specifically, researchers found that none of the Lakefront Supportive Housing residents who underwent substance abuse and mental illness counseling at their residential buildings by the Community Counseling Centers of Chicago were evicted or left their permanent housing during the demonstration despite an annual 7 percent eviction rate and a 13 percent turnover rate at those buildings. At Deborah's Place, two-thirds of the individuals who were initially without permanent housing moved to such housing during the project. And Beacon Therapeutic placed four of the eight families they worked with in permanent housing.

During the demonstration project, the agencies made 913 housing referrals, including referrals to shelters, transitional housing and permanent housing. Of the housing referrals, 444, or 49 percent, were for permanent housing. The agencies also provided 1,376 on-site mental health and substance abuse services and referrals to treatments, and a vast number of those clients went to their first session and maintained their treatment for a significant period of time. The agencies also gave clients medical and job training referrals.

Beacon Therapeutic and the two Thresholds programs participating in the evaluation that provided targeted and intensive services to clients were able to ensure that all of their clients entered treatment, and 75 percent of the clients in the addiction program at Deborah's Place continued their treatment for at least two months. However, individuals with similar problems but who did not receive on-site counseling were less likely to follow up with their first appointment.

Deborah's Place has since been able to maintain one of the positions it created under the demonstration thanks to private contributions, said Kathy Wilson, director of supportive housing at the Chicago center for women. That position, a specialist for homelessness prevention, works with women who might be in danger of eviction and helps them get through the sometimes complicated application process for permanent housing, increasing the number of applicants who are accepted. However, two other positions funded by the HHS grant - to counsel women addicted to drugs and to help maintain the recovery of those who have beaten their addictions - have been eliminated.

"We lost them not because they were not needed but because we could not fund them," Wilson said. A dependable source of revenue would stabilize such programs, she added.

Based on their findings, the researchers recommend increased funding for intensive services offered by mental health and substance abuse providers in conjunction with on-site case management, increased resources to address a lack of supportive and affordable housing across the nation; and the establishment of a new federal program within the Department of Health and Human Services to fund supportive services in conjunction with affordable housing efforts on an ongoing, annual basis.

"No matter how well chosen or managed the offerings may be, supportive services will not be effective unless secured by stable funding in order to ensure their availability over time," said George, one of the report's authors. "Everyone involved in the project spoke to the need for continued contact and support to help people remain housed and to help them maintain their treatments or work through conflicts or even plan their day. As one staff member summed up, 'One year isn't long enough for engagement with clients.'"