Number and Percentage of Persons who Successfully Exit from Homelessness

Status

This measure represents the number of persons who successfully exit from homelessness in a given fiscal year in the Austin/Travis County Continuum of Care (CoC).
-7b1: Total persons exiting emergency shelter, transitional housing, safe haven or rapid re-housing program to permanent housing. 7b1 is the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) name for this measure.
Continuums of Care (CoCs) representing the 48 most populous cities in the United States, including the Austin/Travis County CoC, are assigned to the “Major City” CoC category by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This is done to better understand how homelessness differs by geography and levels of urbanization and population. 
Among Major City CoCs for Metric 7b1: 
  • The average % of individuals who successfully exited homelessness from ES/TH/SH/PH-RRH in 2020 was 39%; the median was 37%
  • The average % of individuals who successfully exited homelessness from ES/TH/SH/PH-RRH in 2019 was 38%; the median was 36%.
  • The average % of individuals who successfully exited homelessness from ES/TH/SH/PH-RRH in 2018 was 38%; the median was 37%. 
  • The average % of individuals who successfully exited homelessness from ES/TH/SH/PH-RRH in 2017 was 40%; the median was 35%. 
ES = Emergency Shelter
TH = Transitional Housing
SH = Safe Haven
PH = Permanent Housing
RRH = Rapid Rehousing

Based on this, the Austin/Travis County CoC is performing significantly better than the national standard (average and median) for 7b1

*Medians provided to show the skewness of some of this data (i.e. cities that have extremely high numbers of clients represented in this measure that drag the average towards a higher number).
**Average numbers for 2021 data are not yet available.

Trending

As you can see here the percentage of individuals who have a positive exit from emergency shelter, transitional housing, safe haven, or rapid re-housing programs has remained steady through 2019 and there have been increases in 2020 and 2021.
Note: to see the underlying data for this chart, please select the "View Source Data" link to the left.

Additional Measure Insights

The chart below displays the number and percent of individuals who successfully exit homelessness into housing broken out by race. It is important to examine the characteristics of clients being served by the homeless services system with a lens to racial equity. This helps our community recognize disparities that exist and work to eliminate them, ensuring that individuals experiencing homelessness in Austin can access and receive services without prejudice. As of May 2021, average numbers for 2020 are not yet available. To this end, the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) is leading a work group to evaluate equity within Austin's homeless services system, particularly with regards to race, and they have set the following objectives:
  • This work group will collaborate with the City of Austin Equity Office to critically analyze system tools, policies, hiring practices, housing interventions/ strategies, etc.
  • This group has a desire to switch the responsibility of culturally congruent services from the client to the service provider(s)/  homeless system.
  • This work group will work with the CoC [Continuum of Care] to ensure that all agencies/ programs working within the CoC      adhere to best practices that decrease racial disparities.
In 2021, the Austin/Travis County Continuum of Care, led by ECHO, implemented a number of equity-focused changes to to address racial disparities in the Homelessness Response System, including:
  • Revamping the governance structure of the Continuum of Care (CoC). The newly created Homelessness Response System Leadership Council, the managing board of the CoC, has codified policies to maximize diverse representation of homelessness system stakeholders and individuals with lived expertise.  Specifically, the governance charter requires one-third of its members to be composed of people who identify as non-white and / or Hispanic, and reserves three seats for individuals with lived expertise of homelessness.
  • The Leadership Council decided and sourced funding to compensate people with lived expertise in homelessness that serve not only on Leadership Council, but its committees and workgroups.
  • The CoC created and adopted the Austin Prioritization Index, a new equity-centered prioritization tool that is used to connect people experiencing homelessness with housing programs. The goal is to eliminate race, gender, and sexual-orientation disparities in how people access housing programs in Austin.  

Measure Details and Definition

1) Definition:  This measure is the number and percentage of individuals who exit emergency shelter, transitional housing, safe haven or rapid re-housing program to permanent housing in the Austin/Travis County Continuum of Care (CoC) in a given fiscal year.
2) Calculation method: Total persons exiting emergency shelter, transitional housing, safe haven or rapid re-housing program to permanent housing out of the total number of individuals exiting those programs (positive exits / total exits).
3) Data Collection Process:  This data is collected homeless services organizations who provide shelter to individuals experiencing homelessness. The data is aggregated by the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) and reported to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on an annual basis.
4) Measure Target Calculation: The target for this measure (30%) is based on historical trends and improving capacity in the Austin/Travis County homeless services system. There is not yet aggregate national data published on HUD's website to create a new measure target calculation for FY2021.
5) Frequency Measure is Reported: Annually (Fiscal Year)

Date page was last updated: July 2022