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A Rising Tide: How to Respond to Increasing

Family Homelessness

Beyond Shelter

1200 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 600

Los Angeles, CA 90017

(213) 252-0772

www.beyondshelter.org

National Alliance to End HomelessnessNational Conference on Ending Family Homelessness

February 10, 2011, Oakland, CA

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“Got Shelter?”

� Shelter programs full?

� Having to turn away families in need?

� Having to rely (more and more) upon motels as overflow shelter?

� Thinking of building more shelters?

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Alternative Response:

Master-Leased, Scattered-Site

Rental Units

� Beyond Shelter used this model for the Skid Row Families Demonstration Project (2007-2009) and leased nearly 150 units during program implementation.

� The agency currently uses this model for an emergency shelter program for homeless TANF/CalWORKs families.

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Master-Leased Apartments

Program Features

� Agency is leasing 15 scattered-site apartments as temporary housing. Beyond Shelter is the lease holder and families are guests (not a “sublease” situation).

� The agency furnishes the apartments through low-cost means and/or donations.

� Time limit of 120 days.

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� Units turn over so that one unit often serves multiple families during a standard leasing period.

� Units are convertible to permanent housing (transition in-place).

� While in the master-leased units, a case manager develops and then implements a housing and services plan in conjunction with the family.

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Implementation

Challenges

� Budgeting appropriately due to payment structure being based on occupancy nights.

� Length of stay limit and job barriers of household heads.

� Lack of permanent housing options –subsidies and affordable market-rate units.

� Transitional housing programs are at capacity and/or are increasingly selective.

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� Unit maintenance and property damage (among

some families).

� “Get your free apartment at Beyond Shelter.”

� Some families getting a “little too comfortable” and lacking motivation.

� Very low functioning, high barrier families who are “perpetually in crisis.”

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Program Refinements to

Address Challenges

� Negotiated extra “grace nights” in contract renewal to account for unit turnover and setup time.

� Developed relationship with County Housing Authority for access to public housing units.

� Re-focused case management services: made staffing changes and intensified efforts.

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Adaptations of Model

� New Orleans: transition-in-place with Section 8

� State of Michigan: rural implementation

� Fairfax County, VA: alternative to motels

� Coming soon to a community near you? Maybe so with HEARTH’s new shelter regs prohibiting admission denials based on child age

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(Potential)

Model Benefits

� Apartment setting offers a normalized, family-friendly living environment.

� Can shelter families in their communities of origin, or within close proximity.

� Master-leased apartments can be an effective engagement tool.

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� Enables providers/CoCs to serve families who

are hard-to-place such as large families, households with teenage children, or pregnantmoms or those with newborn babies.

� Transition-in-place option avoids yet another housing (and sometimes neighborhood/ community) disruption for families.

� Enables communities to relatively easily expand (or shrink) system capacity based on need.

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� Better “overflow” shelter option than motels.

� Can facilitate the transition to independent living.

� Economics: apartments may be cheaper, or at least comparable in cost, to conventional options, particularly motels.

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Nightly Costs of Temporary

Housing by Locality*

$54

$94$100

$110$116

$0

$20

$40

$60

$80

$100

$120

Los Angeles

M-L Apt.

Philadelphia

Shelter

New York City

Shelter

Massachusetts

Shelter

Columbus

Shelter*Non-LA Shelter Cost Estimates from Culhane et al. (2007). Testing a Typology of Family Homelessness Based on Patterns of Public Shelter

Utilization in Four U.S. Jurisdictions: Implications for Policy and Program Planning. Housing Policy Debate 18(1): 1-28.

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Nightly & Monthly Shelter Costs

Compared to FMRs in Select Localities

Per

Night

Per

Month

2009 FMR

2-bedroom

Monthly Difference

Shelter vs.

FMR

Percent

Difference

Philadelphia $94 $2827 $1005 -$1822 -64%

New York City $100 $3000 $1313 -$1687 -56%

Massachusetts $110 $3300 $1098 -$2202 -67%

Columbus, OH $116 $3480 $740 -$2740 -79%