Housing First for Families


 Housing First for Families

Current SF Policy
        •       The Mayor plans to designate only 7% (or 214 units) of the 3,062 new housing units promised to homeless people by 2008 for families (Mayor's Office on Housing SH Pipeline, July 2005). Increasing this to 25% would bring total to 765 units.
        •       A report by San Francisco's City Controller in 2002 found that "families usually wait 3 to 5 months for space in a full-time shelter". The average wait for Section 8 housing through the Housing Authority is 4 years.
        •       According to the Coalition's Housing First Report, the most cited reason that families remained homeless was that rents were too high. 30% reported that their greatest barrier to exiting homelessness was unaffordable rent.
        

Housing First as a Policy for Families
        •       Housing First is a policy the Coalition on Homelessness has called for consistently during the past 10 years. What it means is that homeless people can be placed in housing directly off the streets, without first going through a "readiness process," shelter, or transitional housing program.

Documenting the Need
        •       Nationally, 600,000 families are homeless (Based on NSHAPC, Rog, Shin and Culhane, 2003)
        •       In San Francisco, 2,700 people are members of homeless families, representing roughly 40% of the homeless population (First Five). This includes:
        ◦       582 beds (usually full) at the 5 emergency family and 7 transitional shelters
        ◦       65 mothers and their children at the 3 domestic violence shelters
        ◦       10 youth at 2 shelters for under 18's
        ◦       An estimated 4000 youth per year on the street (Mayor's Office), of which at least 15-20% are estimated by service providers to be under 18.
        ◦       1,560 family members, including 760 children (40% are 0-5 yrs old), in SRO hotels (Families in SRO Collaborative and Department of Public Health 2001 Census).
        ◦       400 adults and their children doubling up.
        
The Financial Impact
        •       The city of San Francisco, on average, is spending $92.52 per night to keep a family of three in shelter and $8,035.20 for a ninety-day stay in one of the DHS Family Shelters (Department of Human Services, Aug 2003).
        •       The city of San Francisco is spending $34, 479 to keep the average family of three in shelters for one year (Department of Human Services, Aug 2003).
        •       It would cost the city of San Francisco $6,000 per year to permanently house a family of three with our shallow subsidy. That is a savings of over $28,000 compared with the $34,479 that it costs to keep the same family in shelter for one year. (Council of Community Organizations, DHS, 2003).