Housing Data Tools
Our housing data tools guide organizations and communities in better understanding their communities’ population, housing, and services needs to address shortages of affordable and supportive housing while achievingmore equitable outcomes. These data tools can be used together to help you make the case for supportive housing, advocate for government policies, and design systems that advance equity.
Evidence and Research on Supportive Housing
We are committed to providing the latest, verifiable information about how supportive housing works.
- Supportive Housing Improves Lives: Research shows that supportive housing has positive effects on housing stability, employment, mental and physical health, and school attendance. People in supportive housing live more stable and productive lives.
- Supportive Housing Reduces Use of Costly Public Systems: Cost studies in multiple states and cities found that supportive housing results in tenants’ decreased use of shelters, hospitals, emergency rooms, jails, and prisons.
- Supportive Housing Benefits Communities: Further evidence shows that supportive housing benefits communities by improving the safety of neighborhoods, beautifying city blocks with new or rehabilitated properties, and increasing or stabilizing property values over time.
Racial Disparities and Disproportionality Index
Communities that want to respond to homelessness and chronic lack of affordable housing equitably need accurate data to make fiscally responsible decisions. To assist communities in understanding their challenges and identify effective, equitable solutions, CSH developed a Racial Disparities and Disproportionality Index (“RDDI”) that looks at 16 unique systems to more accurately identify who in their community is affected by challenges like unaffordable rent, frequent institutionalization, and other barriers to housing.
What does the RDDI measure?
- Proportionality: whether a racial and/or ethnic group’s representation in a particular public system is proportionate to their representation in the overall population
- Disparities: the examination of systematic differences between groups and geographies (disparities).
How to Read the RDDI
The RDDI depicts the “likelihood of one group experiencing an event, compared to the likelihood of another group experiencing that same event.” By default, the RDDI shows each system’s equity index as part of a stacked bar chart, organized by state. This can be broadly interpreted to show the cumulative disparity on a state-by-state basis. Larger portions of each stacked bar point to the primary drivers of each state’s cumulative total.
CSH gratefully acknowledges the Bank of America Charitable Foundation for supporting the development of this tool.
Supportive Housing Needs Assessment
To design programs and policies that address homelessness, we first need to understand the need for supportive housing. We estimate that approximately 1.1 million individuals and families in the US are in need of supportive housing.
How to Use the Supportive Housing Needs Assessment:
- Hover over the interactive map with your pointer and select a state you want to view.
- Viewers can specify which specific needs to view by selecting a population or combination of populations. Simply check a category or categories under SYSTEM in the column to the right and hover again over the state targeted.
- The toggle permits viewers to select Supportive Housing Need or Supportive Housing Need Per Capita results.
- At the bottom of the map, you can find buttons to share, download, or view in full screen mode.
Detailed data on each population, total figures, and research references and citations are available by clicking here. For additional information, see our report on Supportive Housing Need by State.
Data Reports by Population
Below are detailed data reports on the supportive housing need for each population, total figures, and research references and citations.
Review of Supportive Housing Research
CSH reviewed more than 32 studies of supportive housing and compiled information about outcomes (housing, healthcare, and more) into the documents below. These reviews should be helpful for anyone looking to quantify the impact of housing. Please note that our review of the literature was not undertaken in an academic or systematic way; we make no claims about the strength of these evaluations or their findings.
The Evidence for Supportive Housing
In dozens of studies across the country over the last 20 years, supportive housing has proven to be an effective intervention that improves housing stability, reduces the use of expensive crisis care, and improves outcomes even for individuals with complex needs.