David Gruber, of MDHA, Eric Samuels and Nick Thompson, of the Texas Homeless Network, and John Threkeld of the National Alliance to End Homelessness recently met with Laura Weldon, Legislative Director for Congressman Van Taylor (TX-03), to discuss the vital role Housing First plays in ending homelessness in Dallas and Collin Counties.
In the 1990s, homelessness was addressed primarily through transitional housing programs, replete with myriad rules that the homeless needed to abide by, in order to be accepted into and remain in housing. The hope was that the homeless would graduate from these (often lengthy 24 month) programs “housing ready” and be able to move on their own into stable permanent housing. Unfortunately, only a 30-50% of those who enrolled in these programs ever reached that goal.
Then a number of researchers introduced the idea of Housing First. Housing First assumes that housing is a human right and that everyone is housing ready. Therefore, rather than trying to “fix” people, and then house them, house people immediately, with two conditions only: They need to abide by the terms of their leases and meet periodically with a case manager. They are offered wrap-around services to help them deal with their challenges, and they are encouraged to use them. However, unlike in the transitional housing model, they are not forced to do so. The percentage of people housed through Housing First programs who remain housed 12 months later is around 85%, on average, nationally.
This high success rate is the reason that Housing First is backed by the consensus of researchers and became the policy of the Federal Government under President George W. Bush. It has remained its policy ever since through successive Republican and Democratic administrations due to its high success rate.
David, who is a constituent of Congressman Taylor, was proud to share with Weldon that 96%(!) of those enrolled in the Homeless Collaborative of Dallas and Collin Counties Housing First programs remain housed 12 months later.
