Chronic Homelessness

Chronic homelessness is defined as long-term or repeated homelessness, often coupled with a disability.

Many chronically homeless people have a serious mental illness like schizophrenia and/or an alcohol or drug addiction. Most people who experience chronic homelessness have been in treatment programs in the past and have still found themselves repeatedly homeless.

The solution to chronic homelessness is permanent supportive housing along with homelessness prevention policies.

Permanent supportive housing is housing coupled with supportive services. Research and experience have shown that stable housing is often an essential component to being successful at rehabilitation, therapy, and other areas.

What's more, this intervention is cost-effective. Most people who experience chronic homelessness draw services from many federal, state, and local systems, including hospitals, corrections systems, and the like. Permanent supportive housing curbs use of these systems and reduces public costs.

Studies have shown dramatic results from this intervention. A Journal of the American Medical Association study of the 1811 Eastlake program in Seattle, WA, which provides housing to homeless people with the most extensive health problems, saw a savings of nearly $30,000 per tenant per year in publicly-funded services, all while achieving better housing and health outcomes.

Prevention policies are also important to ending chronic homelessness. By identifying people leaving prisons, mental health facilities, and other institutions who are at risk of becoming homeless and connecting them with housing, we can prevent their homelessness before it begins.

Spotlight

Webinar  |  January 19, 2012
A video recording of the webinar entitled, "Putting the Pieces Together: Primary Care and Behavioral Health Services in Permanent Supportive Housing."
Federal Policy Brief  |  March 23, 2010
This brief examines chronic homelessness and provides an overview of key strategies used to reduce chronic homelessness, including permanent supportive housing, prevention, and targeting.

Library Resources

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Fact Sheets  |  January 24, 2010
Although chronic homelessness represents a small share of the overall homeless population, chronically homeless people use up more than 50 percent of the services. The most successful model for housing people who experience chronic homelessness is permanent supportive housing using a Housing First approach.
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Best Practice  |  April 4, 2008
Streets to Homes is a Housing First program in Toronto that targets unsheltered homeless people and provides them with government subsidized permanent housing with follow-up supports. To date, approximately 1,500 people have moved directly from living on the street into permanent housing units, and 87 percent have remained housed.
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Solutions Brief  |  January 19, 2007
This two-page brief highlights three cities - New York, NY, Denver, CO, and Portland, OR - that have done studies of the cost effectiveness of providing supportive housing for homeless people with mental illness and/or addictions. The studies demonstrate that the cost of providing supportive housing is about the same or less than the cost of allowing them to remain homeless.