Houston has success with "Housing First" strategy
More than 100 nonprofit, grassroots and government organizations are assembled under The Way Home Umbrella.
By Will Shakespeare, Groundcover vendor No. 258
CBS Sunday Morning broadcast on April 14 told the story of Houston’s “Housing First” model. The story, narrated by reporter Martha Teichner, was titled “Inside Houston’s Successful Strategy to Reduce Homelessness.” Kelly Young, President of the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston–Harris County, said that the Housing First model which was implemented in Houston should be followed by other cities in the nation. She noted, “We were one of the worst in the nation to begin with, in 2011, 2012. Since then, homelessness is down 63% in the greater Houston area, and more than 30,000 people have been housed.”
Teichner talked to many of the organizers and beneficiaries of Houston’s Housing First Program. How did they do it? Instead of having dozens of homeless advocacy groups work separately on the services or programs they provide to the homeless, the community chose to create an umbrella organization known as The Way Home. This new organization is collaborative and is now called The Coalition for the Homeless of Houston–Harris County. The coalition agreed to have one president and CEO, Kelly Young; one Project Communication and Strategy Director, Mandy Chapman; Mayor’s Special Assistant Marc Eichenbaum and a dedicated board.
What is Housing First?
Like the Y Foundation Housing First of metropolitan Helsinki, Finland, Houston’s The Way Home Umbrella totally embraced the concepts and applications of Housing First. The National Alliance to End Homelessness provided a clear concept and definition of Housing First in a publication dated March 20, 2022: “Housing First is a homeless assistance approach that prioritizes providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, thus ending their homelessness and serving as a platform from which they can pursue personal goals and improve their quality of life.
“This approach is guided by the belief that people need basic necessities like food and a place to live before attending to anything less critical, such as getting a job, budgeting properly, or tackling substance use issues. Additionally, Housing First is based on the understanding that client choice is valuable in housing selection and supportive service participation, and that exercising that choice is likely to make a client more successful in remaining housed and improving their life.”
The publication observes the differences between Housing First and other approaches. It states, “Housing First does not require people experiencing homelessness to address … all of their problems including behavioral health problems, or to graduate through a series of services programs before they can access housing. Housing First does not mandate participation in services either before obtaining housing or in order to retain housing. The Housing First approach views housing as the foundation for life improvement and enables access to permanent housing.”
The Housing First concept discussed above is a generic concept definition. The U.S. Housing and Urban Development department’s report titled “Housing First in Permanent Supportive Housing” attempted to provide a more concise definition of Housing First. HUD stated, “Housing First is an approach to quickly and successfully connect individuals and families experiencing homelessness to permanent housing without preconditions and barriers to entry, such as sobriety, treatment or service participation requirements. Supportive services are offered to maximize housing stability and prevent returns to homelessness as opposed to addressing treatment goals prior to permanent housing entry.”
On July 14, 2022, writer Robert Davis of the online magazine “Invisible People” stated that Housing First was first pioneered in the U.S. in the 1990s. It was developed by a professor named Dr. Sam Tsemberis.
Housing First is premised on the principles — (a) Homelessness is first and foremost a housing crisis and can be addressed through the provision of safe and affordable housing; (b) All people experiencing homelessness, regardless of their housing history and duration of homelessness, can achieve housing stability in permanent housing. Some may need very little support for a brief period of time, while others may need more intensive and long-term supports; Everyone is “housing ready.” Sobriety, compliance in treatment, or even non-criminal histories are not necessary to succeed in housing. Rather, homelessness programs and housing providers must be “consumer ready;” (c) Many people experience improvement in quality of life in the areas of health, mental health, substance use and employment as a result of obtaining housing; (d) People experiencing homelessness have the right to self-determination and should be treated with dignity and respect; (e) The exact configuration of housing and services depends upon the needs and preferences of the population.
Houston’s Housing First Implementation Strategy
As noted in the introductory paragraphs, Houston was able to convince service and treatment providers, non-profit philanthropy groups, and other homeless advocacy centers in the community, to join a coalition known as the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County. Houston’s next strategic move was to go all in by adopting the key concepts and principles of Housing First.
Teichner of CBS Morning News talked to the newly housed individuals and families. She talked to outreach coordinators at some homeless encampments who use tracking devices to locate individuals with various needs, including permanent housing. She also talked to Young and the Housing First “architect” for The Way Home community umbrella, Mandy Chapman.
Teichner noted that Chapman “now advises other cities on how to replicate it, among them Dallas, New Orleans and Oklahoma City.” In her conversation with Teichner, Chapman observed, “Our natural instinct when we see homelessness increasing is to hire more outreach workers and to build more shelters, beds … The idea that if you have no permanent place to live, that you are also going to be able to transform and tackle complex mental health issues, addiction issues, complex financial issues? It’s just unrealistic.”
CBS Sunday Morning also reported that “Houston has dismantled 127 homeless encampments, but only after housing had been found for all the occupants. So far this year, The Way Home has already housed more than 750 people. It helps that the city, unlike many, has a supply of relatively affordable apartments, and that it was able to use roughly $100 million in COVID aid to help pay for rentals on top of its other homeless relief dollars. But Houston’s message is this: What’s really essential to success is committing to homes, not just managing homelessness.”
Impacts and Lessons for Cities
Community impacts of Houston-Harris County’s Housing First implementation are quite impressive:
32,000 homeless people permanently housed since 2012 by the partners of The Way Home
90% success rate for local housing programs. (People don’t return homelessness within two years.)
22,300 unique people who accessed homeless assistance in 2022.
$179 million in public funding in 2023.
$50 million in HUD’s Continuum of Care awarded to partners of The Way Home in 2023.
Net-zero veteran homelessness in Harris County-Houston metro area.
Over $1.4 million awarded to The Way Home in 2024 for homeless youth.
On February 15, 2024, Groundcover News published an article titled, “Homelessness is a national crisis in America: lessons from Finland’s ‘Housing First’ policies.” Finland native Alexandra Granberg shared her knowledge of Finland/Helinski’s Housing First model with our local readers.
Many other cities have tried to implement the Housing First model with varying degrees of success and failure. Atlanta says that they succeeded in reducing their community’s homeless population by 40% by using the Housing First approach. Dallas and Salt Lake City saw some improvements. However, Los Angeles is still searching for a significant improvement after implementing the Housing First strategy. Grand Rapids/Kent County’s coalition to end homelessness which includes more than 60 Continuum of Care partners recently plans to house 100 chronically homeless people within 100 days.
Houston’s Housing First success story should resonate with local and state government leaders who are searching for durable solutions to their challenges with unhoused, unsheltered and growing street homelessness. Houston presents a good case study. National Alliance to End Homelessness research has shown that Housing First is more cost effective than traditional rapid rehousing programs.
Washtenaw County is not as large an urban county as Harris County. However, Ann Arbor, the County Seat, lacks affordable housing. Rent inflation continues to be too high. Ypsilanti is somewhat more affordable, but the cost of housing is rising there, too. Local and state governments should implement Housing First policies but they will likely need economic support from the federal government to make substantial headway.
