A Home of Ones Own: An Evaluation of Housing Stability Plus
Housing Stability Plus (HSP) is a rental assistance program designed to facilitate the process of moving homeless clients out of shelter and into permanent housing. Launched in December 2004, the program includes several innovative features. Most notably, the subsidy is distinguished by a graduated step-down system, whereby the client burden of the rent payment increases by twenty percent each year of five, after which the client is expected to be completely self-sufficient. The Capstone team performed a literature review to identify programs in other locations (both domestic and international) which have maintained a high leasing rate to homeless clients and/or have demonstrated a high level of rental maintenance. The team also performed both quantitative and qualitative studies to evaluate the effectiveness of HSP in order to identify gaps in current DHS data collection and improvements in the program, all in the effort to better assist homeless clients in maintaining self-sufficiency.