This paper examines the potential for improvement in the performance of Rapid Re-Housing program in terms of moving people experiencing homelessness quickly and effectively into stable housing. The program has been evaluated extensively and has generally been found to be effective. These evaluations, however, take program outcomes as a given and do not consider whether improvements are feasible and likely. This analysis employs the tools of data-driven management — including benchmarking, control charts and process mapping – to analyze data from the Sacramento, California Continuum of Care. These tools search for performance outliers that cannot be explained by the underlying variation in the data, and then seek to identify the root causes of these deviations. The analysis does find significant performance deficits have arisen over time and between program providers. If managers could reduce just half of the identified performance deficits, the system-level rate of moving clients to stable housing would increase by a third, a much larger improvement than could be achieved by reasonable budgetary increases.
Applying Performance Management Tools to Understand and Improve Rapid Re-Housing Program Outcomes
Center For Homeless Inquiries
Year: 2020