If you are having trouble viewing this newsletter, please click here.

Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness

Mercer Housing First Demonstration Initiative

This Report to the Community introduces the Housing First Initiative, describes the implementation, and the progress made in the Mercer Housing First Demonstration Project.

We are thrilled to be presenting this Report to our broad community of supporters, including many who are looking to Mercer County as the forerunner of changes we want to see adopted throughout the State. We are grateful to all the funders and the members of the Housing First Collaborative, listed on the inside front cover, who made this project possible.

The goal of the Mercer Housing First Demonstration Initiative has been to demonstrate that Housing First is a successful and cost effective model for ending chronic homelessness in New Jersey. The authors of the Report, from Tufts and Temple Universities, concluded that this is indeed the case, with wonderful outcomes for sixty tenants and an overall cost saving of $9429 per person per year.

The tenants were chosen through a lottery, for which they were eligible based on the length of time they had been homeless and having a documented disability. The agency implementing this project on behalf of the Mercer Housing First Collaborative is Greater Trenton Behavioral Health Care. They were selected through an open, competitive process as the lead agency; they have done an amazing job in ending chronic homelessness for the sixty individuals and families who are reported on here.

We encourage you to read the report and to stay tuned as we seek to grow this program in Mercer County and to spread this approach throughout New Jersey.

Herb Levine, Executive Director

Report to the Community

Report prepared by: Mary Gane and Kevin Irwin

For further information contact: kevin.irwin@tufts.edu - (617) 627-2077.

 

Executive Summary

The Mercer Housing First Demonstration Initiative is a program initiated by the Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness and overseen by a collaborative of funding partners. The Mercer Housing First Collaborative Committee guides the funding, implementation and evaluation of the Housing First Demonstration Initiative, and is comprised of state, local and city government agencies, private funders and nonprofit organizations. The goal of the Mercer Initiative is to demonstrate that Housing First is a successful and cost effective model for ending chronic homelessness in New Jersey.

In 2008, the Initiative designated housing and supportive services to 40 individuals with disabilities who have experienced long-term homelessness, and 10 families who have a head of household who has a disability and has experienced long-term homelessness. An additional 14 vouchers were added in late 2009, raising the total to 64. Under the Initiative, the homeless are permanently housed and provided the diversified supportive services needed to retain housing. This Report to the Community introduces the Housing First Initiative, describes the implementation, and the progress made in the Mercer Housing First Demonstration Project.

In two and a half years of operation the program housed 60 individuals and families who had been homeless an average of 6.3 years.

Thus far the program has enjoyed a 95% retention rate when controlling for mortality, and no tenant evictions.

The cost-benefit analysis is based on baseline and follow-up interviews with 15 original tenants in the Housing First program, all of whom were housed by May 1, 2009. The Mercer Initiative has replicated the favorable cost-benefit ratios reported in Housing First programs throughout the country.

Tenants utilized an average of $30,239 in emergency services the year prior to their housing.

Tenants utilized an average of $2,223 in emergency services the first year of their housing.

Program costs are $18,587 per tenant per year, producing an overall annual savings of $9,429 per tenant

Projected Housing First Program Cost Savings for 60 Tenants: $565,740 per year

The Mercer Housing First Demonstration Initiative has established a sustainable model for substantially reducing the economic, social and personal costs of family and chronic homelessness.

This report reviews chronic homelessness in Mercer County and introduces the Mercer Housing First Model and its funding. The report then provides program data on quarterly screening and placements, tenant profiles, and a cost-benefit analysis of the program. We then review systematically collected evidence of individual and community benefits of the Housing First Program, including tenant satisfaction, quality of life, enhanced connections with services, and increased community integration.

Read The Complete Report

 

Housing First Funders

This report was made possible by the generous funding of

Bristol Myers Squibb & Ortho-McNeill-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

The Mercer Alliance's participation in this project was made possible by its funders

  • Tyco International
  • Fund for New Jersey
  • Princeton Area Community Foundation
  • United Way of Greater Mercer County
  • Bank of America Foundation

Seven national foundations participated through the Partnership to End Long-Term Homelessness

Conrad N. Hilton, Rockefeller, Robert Wood Johnson, and Fannie Mae foundations, the Melville Charitable Trust, Fannie Mae, and Deutsche Bank

Continuing funders of this initiative and members of the Mercer Housing First Collaborative Committee, which commissioned this study, are:

  • NJ Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency
  • NJ DHS Division of Mental Health Services
  • NJ Department of Community Affairs
  • NJ DHS Division of Family Development
  • Corporation for Supportive Housing
  • Monarch Housing
  • United Way of Greater Mercer County
  • Mercer County Board of Social Services
  • City of Trenton
  • Mercer County

 

For More Information

Please Contact: Herb Levine, Executive Director hlevine@merceralliance.org or 609-844-1006.

 

 

Designed and Maintained by: 4M Web Design