Supportive Housing Transitions & Racial Disparities Studies

The National Alliance to End Homelessness has released two new studies, “Leaving Permanent Supportive Housing When Clients Are Ready: How Providers Can Help” and “When Housing Homeless Older Adults, Race Matters,” as part of its Research into Action initiative, which translates research into practical guidance for homelessness response systems. Together the reports examine how housing interventions shape long-term stability, with one focusing on transitions out of Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) and the other analyzing racial and age disparities in housing outcomes among older adults.

Leaving Permanent Supportive Housing: When Clients are Ready: How Providers Can Help, explores what predicts successful exits from PSH and how providers can support tenants who wish to move into more independent housing. While PSH is designed as long-term housing paired with supportive services, the study finds that some tenants voluntarily leave for other permanent housing arrangements and often do so successfully. A large majority of individuals who exited PSH for permanent housing without ongoing services did not return to homelessness. The research also found that longer stays in PSH were associated with stronger exit outcomes, suggesting that sustained stability, income growth, and service engagement help prepare tenants for independent housing.

The study further identifies factors that influence successful transitions. Individual characteristics, such as age, race, gender, and behavioral health history, intersect with community and program conditions. Housing market affordability plays a major role in whether tenants can successfully move on, while program features like staffing levels, funding structures, and turnover rates also shape outcomes. To support providers and tenants, researchers developed a readiness assessment tool (Life After Supportive Housing – LASH), to guide collaborative transition planning, focusing on financial readiness, service connections, and tenant confidence. The report emphasizes that exits should always be tenant-driven and supportive with thoughtful planning rather than motivated by system pressure to create unit turnover.

The companion study, When Housing Homeless Older Adults, Race Matters, examines how race and age intersect to influence returns to homelessness. Using longitudinal homelessness data, the research finds that the risk of recurrent homelessness increases with age and is disproportionately higher for Black and American Indian/Alaska Native older adults compared to their White counterparts. However, placement into housing interventions—particularly Permanent Supportive Housing and Rapid Re-Housing—significantly reduces this risk across all populations and does so even more substantially for older adults of color. The study concludes that expanding access to these interventions, while addressing structural inequities in housing placement and service delivery, is critical to improving stability outcomes as the population of older adults experiencing homelessness continues to grow.