Shelters were meant to be temporary and for disasters - - not permanent solutions to a housing crisis

1 shelter bed added to your system of care requires 6 housing resources per year to avoid warehousing people in shelter. And that, my friends, is the part of the discussion that is lost as communities wrestle with expansion of shelter, sanctioned campgrounds, safe parking, and other forms of sheltering. If you are going to add a shelter bed (and maybe you need to in your community), you need to think about how people are going to get out!

1:6 isn't the right ratio in all communities, but it is a good rule of thumb. If you want each bed in the shelter to turn over once every 60 days, then it will turn over 6 times in a year. Each turnover needs a pathway to a positive destination. 

What does this mean practically speaking? Shelter expansion - where warranted - needs to happen alongside a conversation about increases in Rapid ReHousing (or other time limited subsidies) and more Permanent Supportive Housing. If you don't, it is like the hospital that continues to make its emergency room larger without tackling the fact that each person in the emergency room is going to need access to a doctor, and some will need access to more intensive supports, treatment and care. A bigger emergency room without access to physicians isn't good healthcare, it is just more waiting space for people to get sicker. A bigger shelter system without access to housing resources isn't good sheltering, it is just more waiting space for people to get sicker too.

The era of ending homelessness has, at times, taken on an anti-shelter vibe. It should not. Shelters play a vital role in the crisis response system and are integral to ending homelessness. To play that role, however, the shelter must have an unrelenting housing focus in all that it does. 

Printed with permission from Iaian DeJong, with OrgCode