The Homeless Chronicles. Part 16

This is the third in a 4-part mini-series looking at the Orange County system. In our first article we found that the data on the County’s website as of mid-December 2019 is not up-to-date, and in a number of instances, years behind. Completeness is pretty good, but certainly not up to the private sector level. Timeliness is mentioned but not measured. Last time we looked at the County’s HMIS system and concluded –

• Number of homeless is up
• Length of homelessness is up
• First time homeless is up
• Beds for homeless are not up
• Existing beds are not 100% filled (not even close)
• The number of people waiting for beds is highly variable, and in excess of 2,000 each month, even while existing beds are not being filled.

Today we want to see how effective the system is. Here are some important dependent variables we should assess for people in the County’s programs -

• Are the rates of criminal activity decreasing?
• Are the individuals remaining sheltered?
• Are their incomes going up?
• Are the psychiatric symptoms going down?
• Are their physical conditions improving?
• Are their visits to emergency rooms going down?
• Are they using fewer drugs?
• Are they being assaulted/victimized less often?

Unfortunately there is very little data on most of these important factors. Let ‘s see what they do have.

IS INCOME UP?

According to the CoC Board Reports 40% percent of the people who stayed in the County’s programs showed increased income in April 2018 but that percent grew slowly and steadily through March 2019, rising to 65%. For homeless people who left the County’s programs, the percent remained about 20% over the period. So this is good evidence that the County’s programs were helping. A more detailed analysis shows that the changes are not in earned income, suggesting that the County was able to hook these individuals into various assistance programs, accounting for the increased income. In that sense, the data is not as impressive as first suggested.

ARE PEOPLE COMPLETING THEIR PROGRAMS?

The County measures “successful exit trends” which looks at the “percentage of clients that exited to a successful destination for that project type.” According to the CoC Board Reports here are the trends from April 2018 to March 2019 -

• Emergency Shelter (ES) – stable around 20%
• Street Outreach (SO) – declined from 80% to 20% (July to March)
• Transitional Housing (TH) – stable around 60%
• Rapid Re-Housing (RR) – stable around 80%
• Homeless Prevention (HP) – stable between 80% and 100%

The success for ES and SO is distressing – only about 20% successfully exit the programs. It’s even more distressing when you realize that ES (3,462 clients) and SO (1,409 clients) have nearly half of all clients in the County’s system. The data for HP and RR is much more positive, however, nowhere is there any progress - the success rates are stable.

ARE PEOPLE RETURNING TO THE STREET?

According to the System Performance report, using a 2-year follow-up, here are the “return to homelessness” percentages for the various project programs as of September 2018 -

• Street Outreach - 23%
• Emergency Shelter - 15%
• Permanent Housing - 13%
• Transitional Housing - 10%
• Overall - 13%

This data is pretty impressive. An overall rate of 13% for return to homelessness after 2 years is impressive. What the data doesn’t necessarily reveal is that this data only applies to people who stayed in Orange County. Homeless people in Orange County who were re-united with their families in other counties and states (it happens more often than you think) who then went homeless again aren’t counted, nor are homeless people who don’t re-connect with the County’s system. So the real figure is higher than 13%, but nonetheless the figure is impressive. It suggests to me that most of the people who accept the County’s help sincerely want to exit from homelessness and when given the opportunity, they succeed. This suggests further that the main group being served is those temporary homeless who were displaced due to loss of job or major medical expenses.

The low rate here in returning to homelessness is unexpected given the low rate of successful exits from projects (discussed previously). The County claims that the success rate for many of their projects is below 60%, and sometimes as low as 20% (ES and SO). With such low success rates, one should expect the return to homelessness to be higher than it is. Is it possible the data is incorrect? Given the many errors made by the County, chronicled in detail previously (Click Here), this is certainly a possibility. If not error by the County, the findings are paradoxical.

SUMMARY

In summary, based on the data collected

• Total income is up for people who remain in the County’s program, though earned income (i.e., income from jobs) is not.
• People in ES and SO, who comprise nearly half of all clients, are not completing their programs, though people in RR and Homeless Prevention are completing their programs.
• For those who successfully exit from their programs, the return to homelessness is low, averaging 13%.

These are the only data points that the County measures which can be used to assess success. More significant factors are not measured. These include -

About the Author

Dr. Jim Gardner is the former Mayor of Lake Forest. A Clinical Psychologist, he is a former University Professor and Department Head. He authored several reports about homelessness