Homelessness

Believing that homeless people need more than emergency assistance to help them lead independent lives, Congress has directed the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to develop innovative approaches to providing housing and supportive services to the homeless, especially deinstitutionalized people, families with children, individuals with mental problems, and handicapped persons. A major aspect of the Supportive Housing Demonstration Program is transitional housing to facilitate the movement of individuals to independent living. This report looks at whether (1) the program is helping homeless people move to independent living and what factors influence successful transitions, (2) the program is serving the types of clients specifically targeted by Congress with a wide range of services, and (3) HUD is adequately monitoring grantees and assessing the program's effectiveness.

GAO found that: (1) about 40 percent of transitional housing clients successfully obtained housing and a source of income; (2) about half of the clients that did not successfully complete the program left voluntarily, while the others left because they did not comply with program rules or they exceeded the maximum length of stay; (3) characteristics affecting client success included length of stay, number of services received, household structure, lack of mental illness or substance abuse problems, and primary cause of homelessness; (4) projects followed the legislative intent of targeting deinstitutionalized persons, other individuals with mental disabilities, and families and children; (5) most projects used a case management approach to help clients receive needed services and move to independent living within 24 months after project entry; and (6) support services included housing placement, entitlement or benefits assistance, psychological counseling, job training, medical care, child care, and basic life skills guidance. GAO also found that: (1) in response to monitoring problems identified during 1989 and 1990, HUD substantially increased its on-site monitoring of such programs and issued new project monitoring guidance; (2) HUD intended to comprehensively evaluate the Transitional Housing Program, but its focus on client progress while participating in projects would not assess long-term success; and (3) HUD required 1991 grantees to describe client follow-up approaches, but did not clearly require such followup or the data collection needed to assess program effectiveness.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone: