Prevention

Strategies that aim to prevent individuals and families from becoming homeless are an important part of the County’s efforts to combat homelessness. These efforts include reducing the number of individuals who are discharged into homelessness from institutions such as jails, hospitals, and foster care, and preventing families and individuals from losing their housing.

The Homeless Prevention Program for Families (Strategy A1) provides resources to families at risk of becoming homeless in order to prevent them from losing their housing.

In fiscal year 2018-2019, this prevention program helped 689 families remain in their existing permanent housing or move directly into other permanent housing. With a total of 775 families exiting the prevention program during the fiscal year, this means that 89 percent of all families that completed the program were prevented from becoming homeless. This is an increase of 16 percentage points from fiscal year 2017-2018, when 348 families (or 73%) remained in existing permanent housing or moved directly into other permanent housing out of 477 that completed the program.

In fiscal year 2018-2019, the program helped 813 individuals remain in their existing permanent housing or move directly into other permanent housing. This represents 93% percent (813 out of 872 individuals who completed the program) of all individuals that completed the prevention program in the data period. This outcome demonstrates significant ramping up of the A5 program in the current fiscal year; in fiscal year 2017-2018, 72 individuals (89%) remained in their existing permanent housing or moved directly into other permanent housing out of 81 individuals who completed the program.