The Housing Navigation Program sees massive cost savings through housing chronically homeless people and keeping them housed with collaborative, community-based supports. 

To analyze if housing people truly saves the community money, HNP completes an in-depth study each year of participants’ emergency service (ES) usage pre and post-housing. Data is calculated by obtaining written consent from each participant to request records related to emergency room admissions, ambulance transports, withdrawal management admission, nights in shelters, and nights in jail. 

The following graphs compare pre and post-housing data collected on 20 head-of-household HNP participants and their utilization of emergency services.

*Pre-housing data includes an average yearly number calculated by requesting emergency service (ES) records from the agencies listed below, with each participant’s written authorization, for 4 years prior to housing move in. In some cases of records being unavailable 4 years prior, the average of 2 or 3 years prior was taken, or, the actual ES records of 1 year prior to housing move-in date. Less than 5 percent of data was collected via participant self-report as some participants preferred to not release their medical information.

Post-housing data includes the average yearly number of ES utilized following the initial date of housing. This data is collected through the same pre-housing data collection procedures outline above. The participant’s total months housed is divided by total emergency services utilized while housed to find a monthly rate of ES utilization, which is converted into a yearly rate. 7 of 20 participants experienced 1 or more episodes of homelessness after initial housing date. Number of days homeless was subtracted from participant’s initial housing date through 12/31/2022. Any ES utilized during an interim homeless episode were not included in the pre- or post-housing totals. 

Participants included in this report were housed as of 12/31/2022 for at least 6 months or were housed for at least
6 months upon exit.

We end homelessness by people. We end chronic homelessness by keeping people
housed (and re-housing if necessary!)

In the last 7 years since Housing Navigation’s inception, we have had the privilege to learn from over 100 participants. One of the number 1 things they have taught us is that homelessness is traumatic. Having someone who helps you focus on staying housed is huge. Having someone who helps you get housing again, who doesn’t give up on you, is massive, and it’s the only way we end chronic homelessness!

A key piece of ending chronic homelessness is meeting participants where they are at, which is why over
98% of HN visits occurred outside of our offices.