Hogar Sí and Provivienda have released the first evaluation of the Hábitat Housing First service in Spain, which adds to the growing body of international evidence that the Housing First model is an efficient and effective solution to help end homelessness.

> Read the full report in Spanish and learn more about Habitat Housing First at: www.habitathousingfirst.org

> Read the Executive Report in Spanish here.

> Read the English translation of the Executive Report here.

 

 

Key conclusions:

1. The program Hábitat achieves better results for its participants than its alternatives (the latter range from providing support with other resources to not providing support) in many of the aspects considered (security, social support, leisure, health), beyond the improvement in housing.
2. The housing retention rate of Hábitat is above 95%, therefore this program manages to provide stable housing for its users, which goes hand in hand with a significant increase of Habitat’s participant’ satisfaction.
3. Therefore, the major budget conditioning factor in Hábitat is housing. Though if the cost of stable support of the participants of the control group is considered, Hábitat would not be much more expensive overall than its alternatives.
4. The inclusion of public-owned housing, better reflecting the equivalence between Hábitat and its alternatives in terms of infrastructure housing costs, greatly reduces the amount of that essential item and becomes a decisive element for the feasibility and the scaling of programs like Hábitat.
5. Beyond housing, Hábitat generates major savings by reducing the consumption of social resources, both specific for the homeless and non-specific (externalities). Also, this positive difference tends to increase in the mid and long run.
6. The Cost-effectiveness analysis has shown that the program Hábitat is cost-effective: in net terms, it provides best objective and subjective results, not due to its costs, but to the specific features of the model.
7. Hábitat is a quality institutional response (good value for money, to which devoting funding is an efficient decision, which must be understood as an investment in social capital with a major competitive advantage with regards to the other alternatives.