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New Report Examines Usage of One-Time Housing Fund in Sacramento’s Whole Person Care Pilot: Pathways to Health + Home

June 29, 2022 |  By Rana Suliman, MPH, Lisa Chan-Sawin, MHA, Gretchen Schroeder, MPH, and Sarabeth Zemel, JD

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The Pathways to Health + Home Support Team in collaboration with the City of Sacramento is pleased to announce the release of a report entitled, Flexible One-Time Housing Fund Utilization in the Pathways to Health + Home Program.

This report examines the usage of the One-Time Housing Fund (OTHF) which covered common moving and housing expenses that were often barriers to housing for Pathways enrollees, a population that was experiencing homelessness, or at-risk of experiencing homelessness. The report includes data from May 2018 through December 2021, when the program ended.  

Allowable, one-time expenses included the following: application fees, cleaning/pest control fees, credit check/background check, debt abatement, first month’s rent, furniture/supplies, holding fees, miscellaneous costs, move-in fees, mover/moving company costs, rental insurance, repairs/maintenance, security deposits, and utilities. 

Key Takeaways:

  • The flexible OTHF was one of the great successes of the Pathways program as it helped facilitate housing placements by covering prohibitive housing and moving costs for Pathways enrollees in Sacramento’s competitive and costly housing market
  • When initiated in May 2018, the fund allowed for usage of up to $3,000 per enrollee. This increased to $5,000 in November 2020. 
  • A total of $1,049,762 dollars were spent on 681 unique Pathways’ enrollees or nearly thirty percent of all Pathways enrollees from May 2018 to program end in December 2021
  • On average, each enrollee utilizing OTHF submitted approximately three expenses over the course of two months and spent a total of $1,542.
  • Nearly fifty percent ($521,594) of all OTHF were utilized in 2021, the final year of the Pathways program.
  • The expense categories most utilized have been security deposit costs, first month’s rent, and furniture and supplies.
  • Lessons learned from this promising practice should be utilized in other programming addressing homelessness and housing.

To view the full report, please click here.

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If you would like to learn more or work with Transform Health, please contact Heather Bates at heather@transformhc.com.