The Skid Row Collaborative 2003-2007

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Abstract

The Skid Row Collaborative (SRC) is one of 11 projects funded in fall 2003 under the Chronic Homelessness Initiative (CHI) in fall 2003 to demonstrate the feasibility of moving chronically homeless disabled people directly into housing and helping them retain housing with health, mental health, substance abuse, and other supportive services. With much higher housing retention at the three-year milestone than a comparison group (59 vs. 14 percent), the SRC has proved to be a successful model of housing plus services for the Skid Row population—a model that could be adopted more widely in Skid Row and beyond.

Introduction

The Skid Row Collaborative (SRC) is one of 11 projects funded under the federal government’s Chronic Homelessness Initiative (CHI) in fall 2003. This was the first attempt by federal agencies to combine funding for a national demonstration in the homeless arena. Its intent was to demonstrate the feasibility of moving chronically homeless disabled people directly from the streets to housing and helping them retain housing with a combination of health, mental health, substance abuse, and other supportive services. Demonstrations were intended to run for three years, from October 2003 through September 2006. Most of the 11 projects have had that time extended into the projects’ fourth year because slow start-ups resulted in funds remaining to be spent at the end of the three-year grant period. The Skid Row Collaborative received a nine-month extension, so the project officially ended on June 15, 2007.

In addition to the demonstration’s goals for the outcomes of individuals served, the CHI was also intended to bring local public agencies into the business of ending chronic homelessness by making them parties to each local demonstration. Health, mental health, and substance abuse agencies and the local public housing authority had to sign onto CHI grant applications to indicate their willingness to participate. The hope was that the demonstrations would stimulate system change in the direction of commitments to create and maintain permanent supportive housing programs, which need the resources of a variety of public agencies to operate at maximum effectiveness. Federal funding for all project components except housing subsidies (through HUD’s Shelter Plus Care program) received less federal money each year as the CHI grant progressed, until all funding ceased at the end of the grant period. If they were to continue after the demonstration period ended, therefore, the CHI projects had three years in which to convince local public agencies to pick up all project funding, and less time than that to generate local funds to replace at least some federal services funding beginning in the projects’ second year.

Most CHI projects have had difficulty securing local funding to continue these programs at the end of their three-year federal commitment at their original operating level. In not being able to secure support for its continuation from most of the public agencies that were partners to the demonstration, the SRC is in very good company. To understand why it has been so difficult to secure these health and mental health resources to continue the SRC, it helps to know the challenges that characterized its first years¹.

¹It is beyond the scope of this report to assess the funding levels and sources that the other CHI sites have obtained for post-CHI continuation, or the issues they faced in finding funding. Suffice it to say that the barriers to obtaining continuation funding are many and varied; one or more have plagued all of the CHI projects, and only one of the 11 was fully funded for continued operation at the end of its CHI funding.

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The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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