Assessing for risk of homelessness

Traditionally people reentering the community have been connected to short-term housing options, such as halfway houses. While these can be useful as part of a larger continuum of services, the best way to achieve good outcomes is to connect people to permanent housing.⁶

To make these connections, officers must have an understanding of who is most at risk of experiencing homelessness and their specific housing and behavioral health needs. By incorporating these assessments into standard practices, officers will be able to identify the person’s needs, use that information to connect them to homelessness service providers (such as those using the Housing First approach), and identify additional supportive services that can set the person on a path to recovery.

When seeking out and implementing effective homelessness risk assessments, the following should be considered:

• Conduct homelessness risk assessments as part of overall screenings when someone begins probation or parole (prior to diversion or release from incarceration).
• Evaluate homelessness assessment tools and referral data for racial and ethnic biases.
• Keep the assessment simple and work with people to complete it, including provisions for anyone with reading comprehension concerns; also use common language about housing that all partners can understand.
• Incorporate a definition for homelessness that accounts for factors not considered in the federal definition,⁷ such as long periods of incarceration or housing instability.
• Ensure the assessment addresses the following: (1) previous experiences of homelessness; (2) ability to afford housing; (3) previous incidents or convictions that might restrict someone from residing in public or subsidized housing; (4) housing that may have been interrupted due to incarceration; (5) cultural and linguistic preferences; (6) recognition of any intellectual and developmental disabilities or physical disabilities; and (7) individualized housing services, such as for veterans, people living with HIV, or young adults who are transitioning from foster care.
• Keep the client’s choices and assessed needs in mind when making referrals to avoid placing people in mismatched programs that do not set them up for success.

Connecting with homelessness service providers and landlords

With high competition for affordable permanent housing, probation and parole departments will need to partner with service providers and landlords to ensure their clients with behavioral health needs are prioritized as best possible. The following steps can be used to establish or maintain these partnerships:

• Join the local Continuum of Care, the regional planning body that coordinates local responses to homelessness and connections to housing resources, to better understand the Coordinated Entry process for assessing and referring people to homelessness services and to advocate for prioritizing client’s needs. 
• Speak with the local public housing authority to understand any current criminal record restrictions.
• Reach out to landlords or landlord associations to educate them about reducing stigma, setting realistic expectations around the risks of recidivism and relapse, and to encourage them to rent to people on supervision.
• Recruit homelessness service providers and landlords who reflect the diversity and demographics of the community into collaborative case management teams to better respond to housing and behavioral health needs and mitigate biases in securing permanent housing.
• Use these case management teams to identify any housing challenges, problem-solving for rules that might prevent someone from keeping their housing such as landlord stipulations around pets or visitors. 

Once their clients are in permanent housing, officers can continue to collaborate with providers and their case management team to ensure people’s success by helping to prevent revocations or rearrests.