Glossary of Search Terms in Homelessness and Chronic Homelessness
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TOP SEARCH TERMS
Chronic homelessness
HUD defines a chronically homeless person as an unaccompanied individual with a disabling condition who has been continuously homeless for a year or more, or has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years. Learn more.
Co-occurring disorders
The presence of two or more disabling conditions such as mental illness, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, and others.
Discharge planning
A significant percentage of homeless individuals report recent discharge from incarceration, hospitalization, residential health care, or treatment facilities. Successful discharge planning begins long before the end of someone’s stay in such an institution and includes connection to housing and supportive services to assist the person in gaining/ maintaining stability. Integrated services both within and outside of institutions are necessary to assure effective discharge planning.
Family homelessness
The primary cause of homelessness is a lack of housing that very low-income people can afford. In no jurisdiction in the United States does a minimum wage job provide enough income for a household to afford the rent for a modest apartment. More than a million children will experience homelessness this year. Indeed, one in ten poor children in our country will experience homelessness and the risk is higher the younger the child. Learn more.
Green housing
Refers to supportive housnig for homeless individuals and families that meets LEED-certified "green" building standards.
Housing first
The goal of "housing first" is to immediately house people who are homeless. Housing comes first no matter what is going on in one's life, and the housing is flexible and independent so that people get housed easily and stay housed. Housing first can be contrasted with a continuum of housing "readiness," which typically subordinates access to permanent housing to other requirements. While not every community has what it needs to deliver housing first, such as an adequate housing stock, every community has what it takes to move toward this approach.
Permanent supportive housing
A cost-effective solution to long-term homelessness in which residential stability is combined with appropriate supportive services to meet residents’ individual needs. Permanent supportive housing can come in a variety of forms. Some programs are “scattered site,” meaning a client or agency leases apartments in the community, and the program subsidizes the rent. Others develop a dwelling or apartment building where supportive services are available on site. Some programs require that clients utilize services as a condition for remaining in the program while others provide, but do not require, participation in services. For many, the need for supportive services is reduced over time, as households gain stability. Learn more.
Re-entry housing
This refers to transitional and supportive housing options for people coming out of prison and jail. Research has shown that homelessness is prevalent among people released from prison and jail, and that there is insufficient affordable housing available to people coming out of prison. Individuals released from prison who have a connection to stable housing may be less likely to be re-incarcerated than their counterparts. Read more.
ADDITIONAL SEARCH TERMS
Access to Recovery
A program funded through the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, which provides service vouchers to clients who are mentally ill and/or chemically dependent to access a variety of treatment and supportive services including housing.
Continuum of care
A community plan to organize and deliver housing and services to meet the specific needs of people who are homeless as they move to stable housing and maximum self-sufficiency. It includes action steps to end homelessness and prevent a return to homelessness. View listing of Continuum of Care contacts by state.
Earned Income Disregards
Governments can use various approaches to supplement earnings for the working poor. Earned income disregards are one tool that states have used to create an incentive for welfare recipients to work. Earned income disregards discount a portion of applicants' earned income in determining eligibility for welfare assistance (TANF), thereby enabling working welfare recipients to keep a larger share of their benefits than they otherwise would. At least 35 states have expanded their earned income disregards beyond federal guidelines.
Harm reduction
Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies that reduce the negative consequences associated with drug use, including safer use, managed use, and non-punitive abstinence. These strategies meet drug users "where they're at," addressing conditions and motivations of drug use along with the use itself. Harm reduction acknowledges an individual's ability to take responsibility for their own behavior. Learn more.
Homeless Management Information System (HMIS)
HMIS is a community-wide database congressionally mandated for all programs funded through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) homeless assistance grants. The system collects demographic data on consumers as well as information on service needs and usage. Learn more.
Housing Tax Credit Program
This program provides federal income tax credits to individuals or organizations that develop affordable housing through either new construction or acquisition and rehabilitation. The tax credits provide a dollar for dollar reduction in the developer's tax liability for a ten year period. Tax credits can also be used by nonprofit or public developers to attract investment to an affordable housing project by syndicating, or selling, the tax credit to investors. In order to receive tax credits a developer must set-aside a number of units for occupancy by households below 60% of area median income. The rents charged to these households may not exceed 30% of the median income. These units must remain affordable for a minimum of 30 years. This program is a resource provided by the Internal Revenue Service.
Mainstream services
Refers to the government funded safety net including Workforce Investment Programs, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, State Administered General Assistance, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Services, and other large government programs. Many cite an erosion of safety net services as a significant contributor to the dramatic increase in homelessness in recent years.
Prevention
Refers to any of a number of strategies used to keep individuals and families from becoming chronically homeless. Homelessness prevention is an essential element of any effort to end homelessness either locally or nationwide. Every day in the United States, families and single adults who have never been homeless lose their housing and enter a shelter or find themselves on the streets. No matter how effective services are to help people leave homelessness, reducing homelessness or ending it completely requires stopping these families and individuals from becoming homeless. Policies and activities capable of preventing new cases, often described as "closing the front door" to homelessness, are as important to ending homelessness as services that help those who are already homeless to reenter housing. Learn more.
Section 8 housing
This type of affordable housing is based on the use of subsidies, the amount of which is geared to the tenant's ability to pay. The subsidy makes up the difference between what the low-income household can afford, and the contract rent established by HUD for an adequate housing unit. Subsidies are either attached to specific units in a property (project-based), or are portable and move with the tenants that receive them (tenant-based). The Section 8 program was passed by Congress in 1974 as part of a major restructuring of the HUD low-income housing programs. Section 8 was created to permit federal housing assistance to go for construction or rehabilitation of new low-income housing or to subsidize existing housing. Learn more.
Ten year plans to end long-term homelessness
These local and statewide campaigns in regions across the country seek to engage all sectors of society in a revitalized effort to confront and overcome homelessness in America. Each Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness provides solutions and options for looking communities commited to ending homelessness rather than just managing it. Learn more.
Universal design
Usually refers to engineering and architectural designs, which assure appropriate accommodations for people with physical disabilities. The Universal Design subcommittee of the CT Works Disabilities Task Force is applying the principles of Universal Design to an assessment of services for people with mental illness, learning disabilities, HIV/AIDS, and substance abuse to assure accessibility. Learn more.
Voluntary services
The term "supportive" in supportive housing refers to voluntary, flexible services designed primarily to help tenants maintain housing. Voluntary services are those that are available to but not demanded of tenants, such as service coordination/case management, physical and mental health, substance use management and recovery support, job training, literacy and education, youth and children's programs, and money management.
Sources for this glossary include the Corporation for Supportive Housing, the Greater Bridgeport Area Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, the HUD Glossary of Terms, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the Orange County Housing and Community Services glossary, and the Reaching Home campaign.