Where’s the Housing? Housing and Income Outcomes of a Transitional Program to End Homelessness

ABSTRACT

This project examined the effectiveness of a transitional program in breaking the cycle of homelessness. Within a community-based research approach, the authors conducted a case study to describe the program and participants within a context in which housing is largely unavailable and unaffordable. Although most participants successfully transitioned to housing few transitioned from homelessness to economic self-sufficiency in market housing and participants remained in poverty. Evaluations of housing programs can “blame the victim” or “blame the program” when measures of success are not achieved. Interventions to address homelessness require attention to the system-level forces that create and sustain poverty and inequities.

KEYWORDS:

• transitional housing
• interim housing
• homelessness
• case study
• housing outcomes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Housing readiness, in contrast, imposes requirements on individuals to fulfill before they are transitioned into permanent housing, such as treatment or sobriety (Gaetz et al., 2013, i.e., Housing First in Canada toolkit).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Vancouver Foundation under Grant UNR11-0997; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under Grant 855-2007-15; and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation under Grant 6585-W093.