The Denver SIB, launched in 2016 by the City and County of Denver, aimed to increase housing stability and decrease jail stays among people who were experiencing chronic homelessness and who had frequent interactions with the criminal justice and emergency health systems. The Denver SIB, which provided supportive housing (a permanent housing subsidy and intensive services) to help participants stay housed, used a Housing First approach. Housing First programs don’t require participants to meet any preconditions, and they are built on the idea that secure, affordable, and permanent housing must be available before people can work on other challenges, such as mental health or substance use disorders.
The Urban Institute, with partners from The Evaluation Center at the University of Colorado Denver, tracked implementation of the Denver SIB and evaluated its effects between 2016 and 2020. The evaluation used a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard for determining a program’s impact, that included 724 people: 363 people were in the treatment group (referred to the supportive housing program) and 361 people were in the control group (receiving services as usual in the community).
The Denver SIB study is one of the most rigorous evaluations of how supportive housing affects people’s interactions with the criminal justice system and emergency health services. It shows that supportive housing, through a Housing First approach, not only ends chronic homelessness and helps people find stability, but also reduces jail days and lowers the public costs of the homelessness-jail cycle. (author introduction)