Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust is announcing its partnership with Right at Home, a new national initiative to stop homelessness before it starts. Working with Destination: Home and a coalition of national organizations, the Homeless Trust will develop and implement a local homelessness prevention system with the aim of significantly reducing the number of individuals and families entering the homeless system in Miami-Dade. The goal is to provide flexible and rapidly deployable financial assistance, combined with individualized case management, to help families maintain self-sufficiency. Evidence collected during this 12-month process will be shared with Right at Home, with the end goal of laying the groundwork for a federal homeless prevention strategy. Miami-Dade County is one of just 10 chosen pilot sites across the nation.
“By targeting prevention resources, we believe we will reduce the number of people entering the homeless system,” said Ron Book, Chairman of the Homeless Trust. “With an end to homelessness within reach in Miami-Dade, it makes sense for the Homeless Trust to turn its attention to homeless prevention and use available data, technology and research to determine how to target financial assistance in the most strategic way.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, Miamians face some of the highest housing cost burdens in the U.S., with more than 30% of Miamians spending more than 50% of their income on rent. Further, research shows that half of all U.S. renters cannot afford their housing costs, and economic pressures are pushing more people into crisis every day. Last year, homelessness numbers across the U.S. hit record highs.
Working with a host of partners, the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust will develop a local prevention system in the County that builds on a proven prevention model, spearheaded by Destination: Home in Santa Clara County, CA. The Santa Clara model provides rapid, flexible financial assistance, alongside case management, to support families on the brink of losing their homes.
By intervening earlier, this approach helps families avoid the profound trauma of homelessness and reduces the need for far more costly public interventions after housing has been lost—such as shelters, emergency healthcare, and other crisis services.
The approach not only prevents homelessness, but has also demonstrated strong cost effectiveness: more than 90% of participating households remained stably housed two years later, and a randomized controlled trial conducted by the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at Notre Dame found that every $1 invested saved almost $2.50 ($2.47) in benefits to the community.
“The single most obvious solution to homelessness is stopping it before it starts,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home. “We have demonstrated that targeted homelessness prevention works, and we are excited that the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust is partnering with Right at Home to help scale this proven model to match the need across the country.”
To date, the Right at Home initiative has received $77 million in new funding. Funders include the Audacious Project, Cisco, Sobrato Philanthropies, and Valhalla Foundation. The initiative will provide funding to participating communities to develop and implement their local prevention systems. The Trust has received a $325,000 planning grant and expects to receive a minimum of $5 million over the next three years for implementation of its homelessness prevention system in the Miami-Dade community.
The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at Notre Dame will work with the Homeless Trust and the other pilot communities to test and rigorously evaluate the impact of rapid, flexible financial assistance, and inform the case for a national prevention policy.
Right at Home community partners to date include Alaska (Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness); Atlanta, GA (Partners for HOME); Austin-Travis County, TX (Ending Community Homelessness Coalition); County of San Mateo, CA; Denver-Adams County, CO (Metro Denver Continuum of Care); Miami-Dade County FL (Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust); Minnesota (Minnesota Tribal Collaborative Pathways to Housing); Western NC (Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care).