Examining tenancy duration and exit patterns in a single-site, mixed-tenure Permanent Supportive Housing setting

ABSTRACT

Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) is recognized as an effective intervention for individuals who have experienced chronic homelessness. However, evidence of its efficacy mostly comes from scattered-site PSH. This paper investigates tenancy duration and exit patterns in a single-site, mixed-tenure PSH setting, drawing on nine years of tenancy administration data from a site in Melbourne, Australia. Our methodology combines survival and hazard analyses of tenancy records with analysis of exit reasons. We estimate that the probability of sustaining a tenancy to two years is 50% for supported tenancies and 46% for affordable tenancies. We find that of tenancies that exit, over two-thirds do so in unfavorable circumstances, and these tenancies are shorter than those that exit in favorable circumstances. We find some tenant attributes (including age and psychiatric disability) are predictors of longer tenancies, but tenancies started earlier in the site’s history were more likely to exit early. We argue that it is vital to acknowledge that people do exit PSH and to develop effective policy and practice responses to raise tenancy durations where practicable, and ensure that more people who leave do so in favorable circumstances.

KEYWORDS:

• Permanent Supportive Housing
• single-site
• mixed-tenure
• tenancy duration
• social housing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Taylor

Sarah Taylor is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Social Housing and Homelessness Research) in the Unison Housing Research Lab, a partnership between RMIT University and Unison Housing, a social housing provider. She has extensive experience working with large administrative datasets, geographic information systems, and mixed methods. Her PhD research examined the history of live music in Sydney and Melbourne, using a combination of GIS and interviews with musicians. She has recently published investigations of social housing tenancy outcomes, homelessness service centre usage patterns, and rooming houses.

Guy Johnson

Guy Johnson is a Professor of Urban Housing and Homelessness and the Director of the Unison Housing Research Lab. He has been involved in the areas of precarious housing and homelessness for over three decades, initially as a practitioner and more recently as a researcher. Guy has extensive knowledge of existing homelessness research and current homelessness policies, and is well acquainted with the homelessness service system. Drawing on innovative mix of methodologies including longitudinal studies, randomised controlled trials, as well as in-depth qualitative work, Guy's research investigates theoretical and applied questions relating to the dynamics of homelessness and housing. His research has contributed extensively to government policy and agency practice that address the housing and support needs of disadvantaged and low income households.