Emergency Family Shelter in Hennepin

County, MNFebruary, 2013

Background Hennepin County has 1.2 million people Board policy of sheltering all families 115 rooms in county contracted shelters Can serve up to 125 additional families in

overflow facility Large private shelter with 98 rooms Small private program for 10 families Domestic violence shelters as well

Criteria for entry into shelter Must be literally homeless Must be county resident Must have no resources and need to apply

for all available benefits Must pay for your shelter stay with available

resources – roughly $30/day/person No time limits

Volume of our shelter system

Once in shelter, focus is on moving out of shelter We use rapid rehousing as primary tool No “coordinated assessment” – just a

housing barrier screen Assessed by screener within 3 days Ranked 1-4, low to high housing barriers Level 1 – 1%, level 2 – 38%, level 3 – 37% Level 4 – 24%

Rapid Rehousing tool focuses on housing barriersLevel 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

good rental historyno rental history poor rental history long-term homelessno apparent barriers to housing new to area

recent drug or criminal 4+ evictions

  large family sizemild behavior barriers active drug use

 one easily explained eviction

history of substance abuse, not current

severe behavior problems

  no criminal recordopen child protection case

recent serious criminal

 dv but abuse not around

dv and abuser is in area

current abuse in the family

Ranking is good predictor of need Those with barrier level 4 are twice as likely

to return to shelter than those with lower barrier levels

We track “return to shelter” rate within 6 months of leaving shelter.

We found, however, that most come back to shelter at about 12 months

Rapid Rehousing provides: Help finding housing Supports for 6 months after housed (9

months for level 4s) Shallow rent subsidy; families often still pay

50-80% of their income for rent Most of our sheltered families relying solely

on TANF

Current challenges: Tight housing market – vacancy rate is 1.6% MFIP for family of 4 = $621/month 2 bedroom apt = $1,269/month

This has led to an increase in length of stay in shelter from 39 days to 46 days (2011-2012) and a backlog of cases waiting for a Rapid Rehousing worker.

Current response: Can move to the front of the line to get a

Rapid Rehousing worker if you get a job Increased focus on level 4 families – trying to

make Rapid Rehousing work Planning group looking at other responses for

chronically homeless families – when rapid rehousing isn’t enough

For more information:Minneapolis/Hennepin County Office to End HomelessnessLisa.thornquist@co.hennepin.mn.us612-879-3656www.headinghomeminnesota.org/hennepin