Homeless to Housed in a Hurry: Extending the Use of Diversion to Help Families Exit Homelessness

Published: April 5, 2018

Since 2014, Building Changes has tested Diversion as an approach to help families exit homelessness. Our Diversion pilots in King and Pierce counties served a combined 1,898 families. Results drawn from our evaluation of those pilots are highlighted in two publications, titled Homeless to Housed in a Hurry. One publication is an overview of Diversion and the other is a case study of the Pierce County experience. Our data reveals Diversion costs less and takes less time to get families successfully housed, and that the vast majority of the families that obtained housing through Diversion did not return to homelessness within a year. We conclude that Diversion is an effective and efficient approach for resolving the homelessness of some families. (Cost comparison data on page 6 of the overview was updated July 2018.)

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