The U.S. Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Justice (DOJ) launched the Pay for Success Permanent Supportive Housing Demonstration in 2016. HUD-DOJ are conducting a formative evaluation to assess whether providing permanent supportive housing (PSH) within a pay-for-success (PFS) framework is a successful and cost-effective way of using PSH to provide housing stability and reduce social service use and recidivism for a population continually cycling between homeless services and the criminal justice system. PFS is an innovative financing model that leverages philanthropic and private dollars to provide up-front financing, with the government paying after they generate results, i.e. “pay for success.” This baseline report covers the initial grant implementation period from October 2016 through December 2017 and contributes to research on how communities are working to launch PFS projects to fund PSH for the reentry population experiencing chronic homelessness. It describes the implementation of PFS across seven sites during the first 14 months of the Demonstration. The 7 Demonstration sites started at different stages, and 6 of the 7 sites confronted different challenges and achieved different milestones as they advanced to the next PFS stage.

Click here for the HUD-DOJ PFS Demonstration Study Page.