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iAUDIT! - Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Mark Hood, the CEO of Union Rescue Mission, (URM). Our discussion was part of an ongoing conversation about homelessness and URM’s programs. The Mission has always practiced the contingency management form of homelessness intervention, wherein clients are encouraged to be active participants in their return to mainstream society. Clients are provided an individualized suite of support services which may include substance abuse recovery and work training. As they progress through URM’s curriculum, they are given more responsibility and more discretion in how they spend their time. The object isn’t just to place people in publicly subsidized housing, but to help them lead independent lives.
Mission’s programs are always evolving to meet the changing needs of its clients. Within the last year, URM became eligible to participate in the City’s Inside Safe program. Although it remains a small part of the Mission’s overall programming, Mr. Hood said it is achieving success rates as high as 80 percent, with success defined as transitioning someone to independent housing or to long-term recovery facilities. That success rate is about four times higher than most other Inside Safe programs, which rarely exceed a 20 percent housing rate and lose more people to homelessness than they house.
How does URM achieve such a high success rate compared to other programs? There are several reasons, and they start when someone walks through the Mission’s doors. A client is immediately met by a trained intake worker who gets some form of ID and does a quick basic assessment. Obtaining identification is important because this makes the system “by name”; this means the mission tracks individuals by name and in real time. The Mission’s staff know where their clients are in the system at any given moment. It also personalizes services to meet individual needs.
After the initial assessment, staff make sure a client’s basic needs are met. At first, someone may just need a meal, a shower, and some rest. Once the client is settled, he or she is assigned a case worker who will discuss the client’s needs and goals. Unlike most city and county-managed programs, URM emphasizes treatment and recovery. The Mission admits active substance users but expects them to work toward sobriety. To that end, URM provides true one-stop services, with onsite medical and mental health staff available. Also, unlike other programs, caseworkers are onsite as well. This is also different from other Inside Safe facilities, where about one-third of clients don’t know who their case workers are, and 45 percent receive no services. If a client has an active substance abuse problem, they are not denied entry to the Mission’s programs. In fact, a client may experience multiple setbacks, but as long as they are trying to recover, URM will support them. Mr. Hood did tell me some clients who refuse services and engage in prohibited behaviors may be referred to other programs.
Using the by name system, URM tracks each client’s progress in its programs. Besides recovery services, clients receive “whole person” services, which may include job counseling and job training as well as support groups to rebuild self-esteem. Unlike other programs, the Mission’s performance measures are outcome-oriented and updated in real time. The objective is to create a personalized program for each client with the outcome of achieving full independent living. City and County programs tend to be processed-based; that is, the goal is to complete a series of steps for each client with little emphasis on the final outcome. That is one of the reasons so many people in the mainline shelter/housing system fall back into homelessness; there is very little room for individualizing services for each person. Using the by name system also minimizes the risk of counting people more than once, a problem that has plagued other programs for years and artificially inflated service statistics.
As I mentioned in my February column, the Rescue Mission has been putting more effort into creating programs to support clients finding jobs with living wages. Once a client has been stabilized and oriented into URM’s programs, he or she may receive job training, usually in a skilled trade. Despites the vagaries of today’s job market, economists have documented a huge shortage of trained skilled workers like welders and plumbers. Besides being in high demand, these types of jobs pay better than most service-oriented employment, supporting the Mission’s goal of helping clients achieve true independent living. During our conversation, Mr. Hood told me he had just attended a graduation ceremony at the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, where eight URM enrollees received their professional certificates in welding, and will be moving into good-paying jobs.
Contrast URM’s approach with most other programs, where a client may move from a shelter to subsidized housing. A person can be classified as “housed” if they are in time limited subsidized housing, which pays the rent for about two years. Others may enter permanent supportive housing, where they should receive services to help them live fairly independent lives, (but often receive nothing more than a spartan apartment and infrequent visits from overloaded case managers). The goal of that system isn’t independent living; it is the transfer of someone from one form of publicly subsidized shelter to another. Once the subsidy is removed, the person is at a high risk of falling back into homelessness. This is one of the reasons leaders can claim thousands of people have been housed, yet homelessness has barely decreased.
During our conversation, Mr. Hood said, because the Rescue Mission is primarily funded by private sources, it is not subject to the mountains of documentation required of publicly funded programs. The City has been referring Inside Safe clients to URM for about a year, but they still comprise only about 12 percent of the Mission’s clientele. Yet Mr. Hood said there is far more paperwork required for those few clients than the others. This is another symptom of a system that emphasizes process over results; the top priority is completing the right forms, with the assumption that positive results will follow. As we have seen countless times, that is not the case with Los Angeles’ homelessness programs.
Before we wrapped up our conversation, I asked Mr. Hood if Union Rescue Mission’s approach could be scaled up to meet LA’s huge unhoused population. He said yes, given the proper funding and needed flexibility. Given the June 2 election results, fundamental change is not on the horizon. Depending on the one-size-fits-all approach that has been LA’s policy for 30 years hasn’t worked. Maybe it’s time to try alternatives that have a demonstrated track record of success.
(Tim Campbell is a longtime Westchester resident and veteran public servant who spent his career managing a municipal performance audit program. Drawing on decades of experience in government accountability, he brings a results-driven approach to civic oversight. In his iAUDIT! column for CityWatchLA, Campbell emphasizes outcomes over bureaucratic process, offering readers clear-eyed analyses of how local programs perform—and where they fall short. His work advocates for greater transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness in Los Angeles government. )
