Impact of Shelter Diversion

When a staff member from a partner organization comes into contact with a new client who is experiencing a housing crisis, they will speak with them to assess their situation and needs. If the staff member determines that the client could potentially be diverted and that financial assistance could have a positive impact on the likelihood of their being diverted, they will inform them about the study and possible availability of resources. If these eligible clients consent, they will be enrolled into the study. Participation in the study is completely voluntary and will not affect a client’s access to standard care. Whether or not these clients give their consent to participate in the study, partner staff will use a randomizer provided by the research team to assign them to either receive the standard diversion conversation with no additional resources, a diversion conversation with flexible financial resources available, or a diversion conversation with both flexible financial resources and follow-up case management. Clients are randomized regardless of their consent so that all eligible clients have the same chances of receiving additional resources, but only those who consent will be enrolled in the study for researchers to track their outcomes. Consent, enrollment, and randomization will take place either during the initial intake conversation or during another conversation shortly following it. After randomization, the diversion conversation will continue as usual, with the only change being that clients in the treatment groups will be offered flexible financial assistance. This assistance will initially be capped at $500, although more will be offered in some circumstances. If clients are assigned to receive proactive case management, partner staff will reach out to them once a week for up to 60 days after they have been diverted from shelter. Staff will not reach out to clients who are not assigned to proactive case management, but these clients may reach out to the providers for additional resources and will receive the support they request.

2023-10-26

2026-04-26

Negative diversion outcome index
Positive diversion outcome index (short-term)
Long-term housing stability
Credit
Criminal justice contact

- Negative diversion outcome index: Indicator for diversion exit into shelter, hotel stay, or unsheltered homelessness within the 60, 120, and 365 days following randomization, constructed from HMIS service records.
- Positive diversion outcome index (short-term): Indicator for diversion exit to temporarily or permanently staying with family/friend, renting housing unit, or owning housing unit within 60, 120, and 365 days following randomization, constructed from partner organization diversion service records.
- Long-term housing stability: Constructed using address histories in the Infutor data
- Credit: total balance in delinquent accounts, constructed using Experian
- Criminal justice contact: Record of any arrest, incarceration, or court case

Self-reported housing stability and status

Since unsheltered homelessness and some positive housing outcomes are often not measurable through HMIS/CMIS records, we are exploring the possibility of doing 12-, 18-, or 24-month follow-up surveys to more accurately measure longer term housing stability outcomes. The research team piloted a phone-based long-term follow-up survey with LEO’s summer intern cohort. They conducted approximately 400 phone interviews of clients that connected with Family Promise of West Michigan 12, 18, or 24 months ago outside of the study sample. The survey asked about changes to the household’s housing situation since they sought out services and evaluated their current housing stability. The goal of the pilot was to ascertain whether collecting long-term outcomes of shelter diversion via a phone survey is viable. More than half of client phone numbers were still valid, making a phone survey for long-term outcomes a distinct possibility.

Using a randomized controlled trial design, LEO and its partner organizations hope to answer the research question: what is the impact of offering flexible financial assistance during diversion conversations, with and without proactive follow-up case management, on whether individual are diverted from shelter, short- and long-term housing stability, and long-term outcomes such as benefits usage, income, and employment? Study enrollment will occur starting in October 2023 and continuing through April 2026. Partner staff will screen new clients for study eligibility during their initial intake conversation, before carrying out a full diversion conversation with clients. Clients will be eligible to participate in the study if the staff member completing their intake determines in this conversation that they could potentially be diverted and that financial assistance could have a positive impact on the likelihood of them being diverted. Once partner staff have determined that a client is eligible, they will inform them about the study, give them the opportunity to consent to research, and, whether or not they consent, randomly assign them to a treatment or control group before continuing with their diversion conversation. Randomization odds are 50:25:25 for control and each of the treatment arms, respectively. All clients will have the same likelihood of receiving the treatments, whether or not they consent, but they will only be included in the study if they consent to participate. Randomization will take place using Stata and Qualtrics.
The diversion conversation is the standard of care at our partner organizations. While some of the partners have had financial assistance available as part of the diversion conversation in the past, funds have been limited and were not always available to clients. The introduction of randomization, consistent availability of financial assistance for the treatment group, and proactive follow-up case management is experimental. These processes have been instituted as part of the research study. The purpose of this project is to determine the effectiveness of offering additional support along with a diversion conversation for clients experiencing housing crises. The results of this study will help LEO’s partner organizations decide where they should allocate their resources and what types of support will make the largest impact for their clients. Should flexible financial assistance alone or in combination with proactive follow-up case management be effective in increasing diversions from homeless shelters and future housing stability, it will provide each organization the opportunity to scale up these support services. The results from this study will also contribute to the general scientific knowledge on which interventions effectively prevent homelessness. Partner organizations will send a list of clients who are participating in the study and baseline data on clients that they gather during the diversion conversation to the research team, who will use this data to track participants’ outcomes using administrative data from applicable state agencies.

Not available

Stata and Qualtrics

Household

No

3,200 households

3,200 households

1,600 households control (diversion conversation)
800 households treatment 1 (diversion conversation, flexible financial assistance)
800 households treatment 2 (diversion conversation, flexible financial assistance and proactive case management)

The study will initially carry out 2.5 years of enrollment, though we also plan to track interim outcomes while the study is still enrolling. We primarily plan to compare outcomes between clients who had access to flexible financial assistance and those who did not. 2.5 years of enrollment will generate a sample size of approximately 3,200 households for this comparison. We assume that an average of 40 percent of clients who are not offered flexible financial assistance remain out of homeless shelters for the next 60 days. After 2.5 years of enrollment, with our expected take-up rate of 90% for financial assistance, we will be able to detect a 5.11 percentage point increase in the proportion of clients who are successfully diverted and remain out of homeless shelters for the next 60 days. We will also compare outcomes between clients who received organization-oriented case management and clients who received client-initiated case management to determine the impact of organization-oriented case management. 2.5 years of enrollment will give us a sample size of 1,600 for this comparison. We assume that on average 90 percent of clients who are offered financial assistance and client-initiated case management will remain out of homeless shelters for 60 days. After 2.5 years of enrollment, with our expected take-up rate of 60% for organization-initiated case management, we will be able to detect a 6.64 percentage point increase in the proportion of clients who are successfully diverted and remain out of homeless shelters for the next 60 days.

Diversion Pre-Analysis Plan August 2024