Measuring Success in Transitional Housing Programs

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Homelessness continues to be a significant problem in America, with a 30% increase from 2022 to 2024. The rising cost of rent and healthcare combined with the decrease in rental vacancies only exasperates the issue. Now more than ever, we need transitional housing programs to provide temporary support to individuals on the verge of experiencing homelessness.

Transitional housing plays a pivotal role in breaking the cycle of homelessness, offering a bridge between crisis and stability. For example, the Transitional Living Program (a grant-funded program from the Family and Youth Services Bureau) helped 78% of the youth who walked through their doors find a permanent housing situation. However, it's a complicated process that requires accurate tracking to see what works and what doesn't. Without following a client's long-term success, it's impossible to choose which services to invest in for better results.

Case management software like PlanStreet can help organizations simplify complicated administrative work, helping your teams see the bigger picture for success. In this guide, we'll explore how transitional housing case management platforms can help your organization provide a brighter tomorrow for your clients.

What Does "Success" Mean in a Transitional Housing Context?

Before you can assess an outcome, you have to define what success looks like. While this benchmark will change depending on each community's struggles, common tent poles for measuring success in transitional housing programs include:

• Housing Stability: Whether individuals or families move into and remain in safe, stable, and permanent housing after exiting the program.
• Increased Income and Self-Sufficiency: Increasing the percentage of clients employed or linked to mainstream benefits at exit.
• Reduced Returns to Homelessness: Fewer people return to homelessness after exit, usually measured at the 3,6, and 12-month intervals.
• Improved Mental and Behavioral Health Outcomes: Clients have access to counseling, medications, and other needs for their mental health.
• Client Satisfaction and Quality of Life Indicators: Maintaining relationships with family, participating in the community, feeling of belonging, etc.

Key Performance Indicators for Evaluating Transitional Housing Programs

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are regularly used in the business world to measure the success of a project. The same can be applied to nonprofits when deciphering which programs work well for your clients. To set a KPI, you choose a metric that best defines the outcome your program is looking to achieve. Here are common outcomes and metrics for transitional housing programs:

• Exits to Permanent Housing: Calculate the proportion of households that exit to permanent, stable housing rather than returning to homelessness or entering another temporary arrangement.
• Recidivism Rate: Track the percentage of participants who return to homelessness within a specified period (e.g., 12 months) after exiting the program.
• Employment and Income Changes: Monitor changes in employment rates among participants during and after the program and increases in participants' income (which can support long-term housing stability).
• Service Engagement: Track how often they attend and how they participate in counseling, therapy, or training.
• Reduction in Homelessness Duration: Assess how effectively the program reduces the time participants experience homelessness, with benchmarks such as moving into permanent housing within 30 days of program entry.
• Length of Stay: Track the average duration participants spend in the program to ensure they receive adequate support before exiting.

Challenges in Tracking and Measuring Impact

60% of nonprofit professionals don't use data to make decisions. While data is not required for a nonprofit to have an impact on the community, it makes it much more challenging to improve processes and study the long-term effects of your housing program. Maybe you resonate with some of these challenges when measuring and tracking your impact.

Inconsistent Case Files and Information

Maybe you've emailed a client's therapist, only for the email to bounce back to you because they moved to a new practice... and no one told you. Now, you have to spend an extra fifteen minutes tracking it down to update them about your client's housing needs. Small setbacks like these add up and make your already packed workload unnecessarily more difficult.

Difficulty Following Long-Term Outcomes in Transitional Housing Post-Program

Even when a client moves from a transitional housing program into a permanent home, agencies will still want to keep tabs on how they are doing. 73% of people rapidly rehoused exit to permanent housing. It's important to maintain records for the 27% who did not.

However, if you don't have a system to remind employees to check in every year (or more frequently), it's easy for those emails to slip through the cracks. And it's no one's fault—74% of social workers struggle with even having enough time to complete their necessary paperwork.

Lack of Standardized Definitions and Benchmarks Across Programs

Many transitional housing programs work with other agencies in the community, such as mental health practices and property management companies. Communication between each is vital to ensure that services can be quickly scheduled. However, a lack of standardized definitions and goals can slow down the process and stifle coordination. They also lead to:

• Inconsistent measurement against sector best practices or national averages.
• Social workers doubling up on the same task, leading to wasted time.
• Unreliable and incomparable data, which causes measurement systems like HMIS to be useless.
• Difficulty in analyzing trends over time to improve processes.

Resource Constraints in Smaller NGOs and Agencies

Many smaller NGOs and agencies are working on shoestring budgets. 88% of nonprofits spend less than $500k annually for their work. With budgets that small, it can feel difficult to find the funding for outcome-tracking software that works within your nonprofit's financial situation.

Focus On Process Over Outcomes

Federal data collection often emphasizes process measures, like the number of people served, rather than beneficial outcomes (long-term housing stability, employment, etc.). This makes it hard to see the actual effectiveness of interventions or compare the results of different programs.

Difficulty Analyzing Trends

Without precise benchmarks or the ability to compare data across departments and programs, nonprofits can't assess performance or hone in on trends and disparities among the many populations they serve. Inconsistent data collection makes it even harder to pinpoint outcomes and push continuous improvement.

How PlanStreet Enables Effective Impact Measurement for Transitional Housing Programs

Case management software like PlanStreet creates an affordable solution to effectively measure the impact of transitional housing programs. Our HIPAA-compliant and FedRAMP-ready software is hosted on Microsoft Azure, which is known for its trusted security systems.

Our transitional housing software helps you better measure your impact through:

• Custom Dashboards: Customize your forms and interface, tracking your key metrics from the home page.
• Automated Alerts and Reports: Set up report creation and email/text alerts to be notified of any important details, including milestones, rent payments, and service attendance.
• Data Integration: A simple interface allows you to track detailed information and create powerful reports for grants, your board, and any other interested party.
• Longitudinal Tracking: Keep participant records for years for long-term analysis.
• Secure, Role-Based Access: Maintain data privacy and compliance with HIPAA/HMIS standards.
• Affordable Solution: PlanStreet offers custom pricing plans to fit into your budget.

"With PlanStreet, we can report back to our funder. So we were able to get information in a place that we could easily then send reports to them about." Denise Renee Noris, Eviction Mediation Program Coordinator| Center for Housing and Community Studies UNCG

Tips for Agencies to Improve Outcomes With Case Management Software

Software is only beneficial if it is implemented well within your organization. 70% of all software implementations fail because of poor user adoption. People do not like change because it takes more time to do something with a new strategy in the beginning. However, your team can avoid this pitfall by implementing these strategies to improve outcomes. When your team sees how the software can help your clients, they'll be eager to move forward.

• Train Your Staff on Data Literacy: Schedule training sessions for staff on how to use the new software. Educate them on data safety measures so they understand how to keep sensitive information protected.
• Collect Qualitative Data: Be sure to use software to collect success stories for your clients. Quantitative metrics are important for funding and reporting, but your team wants to hear how individuals are impacted.
• Change Services Based on Trends: Certain ideas will sound great but won't be helpful in practice. Track trends with reporting and make changes based on what works and what doesn't.
• Help Clients: Walk clients through the process of completing resident screening forms, payment processing, and monthly rent collection through the software.

Measure Success Better With PlanStreet

Measuring success goes beyond numbers. It's about gaining actionable insights to make transitional housing programs more effective, impactful, and tailored to participant needs. The right tools and metrics can turn hopeful goals into proven realities.

PlanStreet's customizable interface can be changed to meet your nonprofit's exact needs. Our transitional housing case management software offers easy-to-use features so that you can focus on the work that matters most: caring for your clients.

Our case management software comes with:

• Analytics and reporting tools to gain deeper insights into your data.
• Client tracking features to effortlessly see what is happening with every client.
• Bed occupancy management so you know what's available where at any given time.
• Program and service scheduling features with a user-friendly calendar.
• Caseworker and client portals for faster communication.

PlanStreet comes alongside your team to help you do your work better and faster. Schedule a demo today to see how.

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