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Tag: Cost-Based Priority

The Work Behind Work: Combatting Homelessness with Jobs

February 14, 2024 / By Seth Pickens, Daniel Flaming, Manuel Gomez and Ana Alvarez

The most common reason unhoused individuals give for why they do not have a place of their own to live is unemployment and lack of income. Homelessness is primarily a problem of income. Upstream interventions that lead to employment will significantly reduce the number of men, women and children who experience homelessness.

Recognizing and Helping High-Need Homeless Individuals: Five Homeless Predictive Screening Tools

March 2, 2023 / By Daniel Flaming / Economic Roundtable

Preventive vs. Remedial Screening Tools The Economic Roundtable has developed five predictive screening tools to identify and prioritize high-need homeless individuals who will have high future public costs because of ongoing crises in their lives that are resolved in expensive institutional settings, including jails and hospitals. 

Model-Based Triage of Permanent Supportive Housing: Improving the Allocation of Supportive Housing Resources

July 1, 2018 / By Jane Carlen, Halil Toros and Daniel Flaming / Santa Clara County Center for Population Health Improvement (CPHI)

This streamlined triage tool was developed for the Santa Clara County Center for Population Health Improvement (CPHI). It provides an empirical tool for prioritizing patients for permanent supportive housing using close-to-real-time data that is available to CPHI. In addition, an industry-wide switch in medical diagnostic classification systems necessitated a conversion of all diagnostic variables from the ICD-9 classification system to the ICD-10 system. 

Prioritizing Homeless Assistance Using Predictive Algorithms: An Evidence-Based Approach

April 6, 2018 / By Daniel Flaming / County of Santa Clara, Destination: Home

The current issue of HUD’s peer-reviewed journal, Cityscape, includes an article on the Silicon Valley Triage Tool that was developed by the Economic Roundtable. This statistical model provides a fair, objective tool for triage—prioritizing which individuals should have immediate access to permanent supportive housing. Santa Clara County voters have approved major investments in affordable housing for people experiencing homelessness, but the number of individuals who need housing still substantially exceeds the amount of housing that is available for them.   

Silicon Valley Triage Tool: Identifying and Housing High-Cost Homeless Residents

February 17, 2016 / By Halil Toros and Daniel Flaming / County of Santa Clara, Destination: Home

Why the Silicon Valley Triage Tool is Important: The number of homeless people needing housing far exceeds the available housing supply, and there is not a fair, objective system for prioritizing who gets to be housed. The triage tool addresses this problem by identifying individuals for whom the solution of housing costs less than the problem of homelessness.  

Getting Home: Outcomes from Housing High Cost Homeless Hospital Patients

September 1, 2013 / By Daniel Flaming, Patrick Burns, Gerald Sumner - Statistician and triage tool developer and Susan Lee - Corporation for Supportive Housing / Economic Roundtable, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Corporation for Supportive Housing, UniHealth Foundation

Evaluating the outcomes for 163 hospital patients screened from April 2011 to May 2013 by the 10th Decile Project in Los Angeles, which works with hospitals to identify the 10 percent of homeless patients with the highest public and hospital costs – the 10th decile – and provide immediate services for placing these individuals into permanent supportive housing.

Hospital to Home: Triage Tool II for Identifying Homeless Hospital Patients in Crisis

November 18, 2012 / By Daniel Flaming, Patrick Burns, Gerald Sumner, Manuel H. Moreno and Halil Toros / Economic Roundtable

Different conditions of body and mind found among homeless adults provide a basis for predicting who will have very high public costs – in the 10th cost decile. This report presents a triage tool developed specifically for use in hospitals or clinics where there is not access to data from other agencies about the use of non-medical public services. 

Crisis Indicator: Triage Tool for Identifying Homeless Adults in Crisis

August 1, 2011 / By Daniel Flaming, Patrick Burns, Gerald Sumner, Manuel H. Moreno and Halil Toros / the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Corporation for Supportive Housing

The triage tool, or crisis indicator, identifies homeless individuals in hospitals and jails who have continuing crises in their lives that create very high public costs. This redesigned tool is four times more accurate than the earlier screening tool released in 2010. The tool is developed for use in jails, hospitals and clinics where homeless individuals with high levels of need and high public costs are most likely to be found. Discovery of the exceptionally high public costs for people in the 10th cost decile has led to interest in identifying these individuals and giving them high priority for access to permanent supportive housing. This group accounts for well over half of all public costs for homeless adults, and their costs decrease by 86 percent when they live in permanent supportive housing.

Where We Sleep: The Costs of Housing and Homelessness in Los Angeles

November 1, 2009 / By Daniel Flaming, Michael Matsunaga and Patrick Burns / The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

The central question investigated in this study is the public costs for people in supportive housing compared to similar people that are homeless. The typical public cost for residents in supportive housing is $605 a month. The typical public cost for similar homeless persons is $2,897, five-times greater than their counterparts that are housed. This remarkable finding demonstrates that practical, tangible public benefits result from providing supportive housing for vulnerable homeless individuals. The stabilizing effect of housing plus supportive care is demonstrated by a 79 percent reduction in public costs for these residents.

10-Year Strategy to End Homelessness

June 1, 2006 / By Daniel Flaming and Paul Tepper / The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

A comprehensive strategy with 25 actions, accountable agencies, timelines, and performance benchmarks to prevent and end homelessness in Los Angeles County. From 2002 through 2004 the Economic Roundtable and the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center carried out research, listened to ideas from community stakeholders, and met with public officials in order to prepare this strategic plan for ending homelessness in Los Angeles County. 

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