Before A Family Loses Its Home, There’s Homebase

As of this January, homelessness in New York City was at its highest levels since the Great Depression, a sitution due in large part to a lack of affordable housing as the city’s population expands at a record pace and rents take up a growing share of household incomes. Last month more than 60,000 people slept in a shelter every night—including nearly 15,000 families with children. Homelessness is not unique to the five boroughs, but the city’s shelter system is guided by something unusual: a legally mandated right to shelter for all.

To guarantee these accommodations, the city spends more than $1 billion each year, one of the largest homeless services budgets in the country. But what if the city could prevent families from losing their homes in the first place—and save money in the process? Peter Messeri, professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Brendan O'Flaherty, professor of Economics, co-authors of a new paper in the Journal of Housing Economics say a program called Homebase is doing just that—and with great success.

Launched in 2004 by the Department of Homeless Services, Homebase aims to help families facing an economic crisis like a sudden job loss. Its services vary from case-to-case, depending on what specific problem a family faces: they provide access to legal services, short-term financial aid, education and job placement, and tools for families to understand and access public benefits.

Understanding the Data

Brought together through the Columbia Center for Homelessness Prevention Studies and its leader, Sociomedial Sciences Professor Carol Caton, Messeri and O’Flaherty set out to evaluate the effectiveness of Homebase’s efforts. Along with Sarena Goodman, an economist with the Federal Reserve Board, Messeri and O’Flaherty found that, between 2004-2008, an estimated 5-11 percent of at-risk families avoided entry into the shelter system in the neighborhoods where Homebase operated.

To get these numbers, the researchers had to overcome a technical challenge: While city data is readily available on how many families are in the shelter system at any given time, there is no equivalent for the near misses—families who came close to losing their homes, but found a way to avoid it. In response, they developed a set of equations to determine the number of homeless families in a community if Homebase wasn’t available.

“Homebase started in different neighborhoods at different times, which allowed us to compare the effects it had on entries into the shelter system,” explains O’Flaherty.

Focus on Families

Defying popular conception of homeless as isolated individuals, three-quarters of the city’s shelter population is families, according to the NYC Coalition for the Homeless. Homebase is tailored to meet the specific needs of this population. 

While substance abuse and mental illness are often the driving forces for homelessness among single adults, adults in homeless families are no more likely than poor-but-housed families to experience behavioral health problems.

“People sleeping on the street really need ongoing supportive services: they need to know how to maintain their housing, manage their mental health problems or substance abuse problems, so they don’t get kicked out of their housing,” says Messeri. “For families, we’re trying to help them through a temporary crisis to prevent them from going to shelters in the first place.”

The Big Picture

To keep the average family in the shelter system costs more than $30,000 a year. By comparison, Homebase services are a relative bargain at $3,000-$4,000 per family. Over the last dozen years, the city has expanded the program: in its first four years, Homebase served 11,000 families—today, it helps more than 10,000 families every year.

Despite its success and its friendly price tag, Homebase is just one piece of the solution needed to fix New York City’s homelessness problem. “It’s effective at plugging one hole in the Titanic's hull—but not all of them,” says O’Flaherty. The city’s homeless population continues to grow, fueled by a lack of affordable housing, a problem Mayor De Blasio is attempting to tackle through his ambitious Housing New York plan. 

“Homebase is a cost-effective way to provide help for people with housing in a temporary crisis, like a job loss, to keep them out of the shelter system,” says Messeri. “But it doesn’t create new affordable housing. To really make progress against homelessness, Homebase has to be part of a larger housing strategy.”