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SALT LAKE CITY — In a modest conference room in the Road Home's downtown shelter, outreach workers, caseworkers, housing specialists and others gather weekly with the goal of putting roofs over the heads of people experiencing chronic homelessness.
They are men and women most people around the table know by name.
Kevin Austin, housing placement supervisor for the Road Home, describes the meeting as a "matching game" intended to place people in housing based on standardized assessments of vulnerability, needs and to make decisions whether available housing units would work for their needs.
The need far outweighs the number of available units, so the triage process helps to place people with the most acute issues in available housing, which can include permanent supportive housing complexes with on-site case management, apartments available for weekly rentals and units in market rate apartment complexes that are master leased by agencies that rent them to clients who have housing vouchers.
The group also works to rehouse people who have lost their housing because they were evicted, they are being released from jail and need a place to live or the placement didn't work for some other reason. Others are people who have camped outside for decades and outreach workers have finally convinced them to come into housing.
The decisions rely heavily on clients' respective SPDAT numbers, short for Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool. Higher numbers indicate higher degrees of vulnerability.
The group also looks at total days spent in homeless shelters, whether people meet the federal definition of chronic homelessness, numbers of contacts with outreach workers and their ages.
The conversation moves quickly, with Austin offering up a housing option and asking the group for names of people who might be a good fit. (For privacy reasons, KSL is not using clients' names.)
"How about Jane Doe?" an outreach worker might suggest.
"What's her SPDAT?" Austin asks.
"58," the outreach worker responds.
"That should work," Austin replies.
Interestingly, no one asks for more clarifying information because most of the 130 people on the lists are well known to the small group, either as shelter guests or people whom outreach workers have repeatedly visited on the streets.
“We’re pretty active in the community. A lot of people have been rehoused before. Quite a few have gone through the shelter. There’s quite a few we’ve had at different facilities. That helps to know the person a little bit more," explains Ed Snoddy, a veteran medical outreach worker for Volunteers of America-Utah.
One man on the current list has stayed in emergency shelter a total of more than four years. The eldest person on the list is 72, the youngest is 22.
Most people on the current list are "baby boomers," Austin said. Younger people are usually more adept at couch surfing with friends or staying with relatives, he said. "The young ones haven't burned all their bridges yet."
On the other end of the spectrum lies the harsh reality of years of chronic homelessness — lives shorted from untreated or poorly treated chronic illnesses, mental illnesses, substance use disorders and the stress and risks of having no place to live.
To be considered chronically homeless, a person has experienced homelessness longer than one year or four episodes of homelessness in three years, and they have a disabling condition, according to the federal definition.
They make up a small segment of the overall population in Utah that experiences homelessness, about 6 percent, according to annualized estimates by the Utah Department of Workforce Services. According to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, "people experiencing chronic homelessness cost the public between $30,000 and $50,000 per person per year through the repeated use of emergency rooms, hospitals, jails, psychiatric centers, detox and other crisis services."
The group finishes its work quickly, largely because the assessment tools it uses help streamline the process and most of the group members know the people on the list personally. Many of them have been involved in the triage process from its start, Austin said.
But the short length of the meeting is also a function of low vacancy rates for rental units in Salt Lake County, which enables landlords to be more selective about tenants, and limited numbers of housing vouchers.
Another limiting factor is the number of available case managers because placing someone in housing is just half the battle. The larger goal is to help them settle into their new surroundings and work on the issues that contributed to their homelessness.
Applications and paperwork need to be in order, too.
"It’s a good model to work with. It’s getting more landlords involved in the process and good, strong case management. The whole idea is taking the most vulnerable and getting them in a place to reduce all the harm. That’s the overall goal," Snoddy said.
Community Solutions, a national nonprofit dedicated to helping communities solve the complex social problems facing their most vulnerable residents, describes Salt Lake County's "chronic by-name list" as "podium-worthy." Only two other cities have earned that distinction, Austin said.
"By-name lists are a game changer in a community’s effort to end homelessness. They transcend statistical estimates and provide a comprehensive accounting for every person who is actually living on the streets," Adam Gibbs wrote on the Community Solutions blog.
"With a solid, constantly updated by-name list, community leaders can know exactly how many people are experiencing homelessness at any given time, along with their names, needs and circumstances. That means they can prioritize housing, track inflow, and make resource allocation decisions efficiently and in real time."
SPDAT, a more comprehensive assessment, and VI-SPDAT, which is a quicker version that can be administered during brief encounters with clients, are good tools but have their limits, Snoddy said.
"The sad part is, there are some people that fly under the radar. They don’t go to jail, they don’t use ER services, but they’ve been out there for 20-plus years. They deserve a shot (at housing), too. They’re probably less likely to be a more-intensive case management issue," he said.
That's the beauty of the weekly meeting, Austin said, because it is an opportunity for front-line outreach workers and caseworkers to advocate for people they know.
"This is ground level. These are people who are on the streets every day. Just about everyone is involved in direct client services," Austin said.
