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Creating a Regional Model to Coordinate and Prioritize Access to Permanent Supportive Housing

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Abstract

Demand for supportive housing outstrips availability in metropolitan regions around the country. Individuals who are homeless with serious mental illnesses, substance abuse, and other debilitating health conditions are often heavy users of publicly financed services and institutions, such as jails, emergency departments, psychiatric and medical hospitals, and sobering and detoxification services. King County, in collaboration with community partners, has developed a regional system for coordinating and prioritizing access to this limited resource based on utilization of publicly financed services/institutions and/or vulnerability. In this paper, the model, key implementation steps, preliminary results, and lessons learned are described.

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Acknowledgment

We would like to acknowledge Cheryl Markham of the King County Department of Community and Human Services for her contributions to this article.

Contributors

Laurie Sylla, System Performance Evaluation Coordinator

René Franzen, Privacy Officer/High Utilizer Data Base Coordinator

Debra Srebnik, Program Evaluator/Quality Improvement Specialist

Marla Hoffman, Statistician

Amnon Shoenfeld, Division Director (Retired)

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Correspondence to Laurie Sylla MHSA, BSW.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Sylla, L., Franzen, R., Srebnik, D. et al. Creating a Regional Model to Coordinate and Prioritize Access to Permanent Supportive Housing. J Behav Health Serv Res 44, 564–573 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11414-016-9527-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11414-016-9527-6

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