Examining tenancy duration and exit patterns in a single-site, mixed-tenure Permanent Supportive Housing setting

Abstract

ABSTRACT Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) is recognized as an effective intervention for individuals who have experienced chronic homelessness. However, evidence of its efficacy mostly comes from scattered-site PSH. This paper investigates tenancy duration and exit patterns in a single-site, mixed-tenure PSH setting, drawing on nine years of tenancy administration data from a site in Melbourne, Australia. Our methodology combines survival and hazard analyses of tenancy records with analysis of exit reasons. We estimate that the probability of sustaining a tenancy to two years is 50% for supported tenancies and 46% for affordable tenancies. We find that of tenancies that exit, over two-thirds do so in unfavorable circumstances, and these tenancies are shorter than those that exit in favorable circumstances. We find some tenant attributes (including age and psychiatric disability) are predictors of longer tenancies, but tenancies started earlier in the site’s history were more likely to exit early. We argue that it is vital to acknowledge that people do exit PSH and to develop effective policy and practice responses to raise tenancy durations where practicable, and ensure that more people who leave do so in favorable circumstances.