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Mercer's Rapid Rehousing Success Highlighted by National HHS
The Administration for Children and Families, a division of Health and Human Services, released an information memo highlighting how jurisdictions around the nation are reorganizing their TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) programs to help end homelessness.
New Jersey
After the success of an initial rapid re-housing demonstration project, launched in January 2010, New Jersey's Mercer County Board of Social Services (MCBOSS) implemented a second rapid re-housing pilot program, The Family Housing Initiative. MCBOSS was inspired by what they saw as a more responsive and less expensive way to rapidly house families and have them exit off of TANF through employment. The hallmark of the program is the creation of the Rapid Exit Team, comprised of nine in-house staff people. This team works with all homeless families who are TANF-eligible, providing intensive case management services designed to help families stabilize in their new housing and ensuring that families have the resources they need to stay stably housed. Assistance in finding affordable housing is the primary goal. Employment services are another goal of The Family Housing Initiative’s case management; families are also offered parenting support, budgeting assistance and child care. Families assisted with the Family Housing Initiative receive an average of five months of rental assistance and case management support, at an average cost of $7,050 per household. Families in the Family Housing Initiative received more focused and specialized employment support than families assisted in the initial pilot. As families moved more quickly into employment, they required shorter amounts of rental assistance than families assisted in the first rapid re-housing pilot. The objective of the Rapid Exit Team is to move homeless cases from shelters/motels to permanent housing within 30 days utilizing both agency and external provider resources. All non-homeless, at-risk households are serviced by the remaining MCBOSS social workers. All caseloads are smaller for both teams, and MCBOSS reports that the use of existing staff helps to keep costs low and makes it easier to coordinate housing and employment interventions.
Since implementing the new approach, Mercer County has seen the average daily utilization of family emergency shelter and transitional housing decline by 20 percent and use of motel vouchers to accommodate families without shelter decline by 66 percent. Families are reconnecting to housing faster and spending less time in homeless assistance programs. With regard to employment outcomes, Mercer County reports that rapidly re-housed families appear to fare better than families with similar employment barriers but served through long-term transitional housing programs. A higher percentage of families exiting homelessness with rapid re-housing have income from work than families exiting transitional housing. In addition, their overall household incomes are higher: families exiting rapid re-housing have an average monthly household income of $835, while families exiting transitional housing show an average monthly income of $558.
The Information Memorandum can be accessed here.
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The Gates Foundation also gave a shout-out to this important work to end family homelessness
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For More Information
Please Contact: Tarry Truitt, Director of Projects and Communications, ttruitt@merceralliance.org or 609-844-1008.
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