GLOSSARY OF TERMS – HOMELESS HOUSING
Emergency Homeless Housing: A facility with overnight sleeping accommodations, the primary purpose of which is to provide temporary shelter for the homeless in general or for specific populations of the homeless.
Emergency Shelter: A facility with overnight sleeping accommodations, the primary purpose of which is to provide temporary shelter for the homeless in general or for specific populations of the homeless. Shelter may include year -round emergency shelters, w inter and warming shelters, navigation centers and transitional housing. These types of shelter have varying hours, lengths of stay, food service, and support services.
Emergency Supportive Housing - A facility with overnight sleeping accommodations, the primary purpose of which is to provide temporary shelter for the homeless in general or for specific populations of the homeless and which includes supportive services.
Housing First: A well-accepted, national, evidenced-based best practice that eliminates barriers to housing, ensuring individuals and families can exit homelessness as quickly as possible.
Housing First is an approach to quickly and successfully connect households experiencing homelessness to permanent housing without preconditions and barriers to entry, such as sobriety, treatment or service participation requirements. Supportive services are offered on a voluntary basis to maximize housing stability and prevent returns to homelessness as opposed to addressing predetermined treatment goals prior to permanent housing entry.
Housing focused and low barrier are terms referring to programs with fe w requirements to participate. These programs tailor their services to support households with the goal of exiting homelessness and offer voluntary case management that assists households to create and action plan to get housing. These programs have removed most requirements/obstacles for entry into the program so that individuals and households are more likely go indoors to connect to services rather than stay on the street.
Supportive Services: Services that include assistance applying for benefits, mental health and substance use services, outpatient health services, information and referral services, child care, education, life skills training, emplo yment assistance and job training, housing search and counseling services, legal services, outreach services, transportation, food assistance, risk assessment and safety planning (particularly for individuals and families experiencing domestic violence), and case management services such as counseling, finding and coordinating services, and monitoring and evaluating progress in a program.
Temporary Housing: In this context, temporary housing refers to housing in which a participant will stay for a temporary period, generally less than two years. This is in contrast to Permanent Housing, where a participant becomes a tenant and can stay in housing indefinitely. Temporary housing can provide housing while an individual is securing permanent housing.