Homeless Crisis Response System

Accurate, reliable data is a critical tool for monitoring performance and measuring results. Data dashboards help us evaluate the effectiveness of our homeless response system while building transparency and accountability. Using these interactive tools can help us identify strategies to prevent and end homelessness.

Our Results

"We are targeting functional zero – a state where any person starting a new homeless episode has immediate access to shelter and a permanent housing intervention."
-Pierce County's Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness
Since 2015, thousands of people have successfully exited homelessness into permanent housing.
Access to permanent housing, such as a home or an apartment, ends the crisis of homelessness. Permanent housing can be achieved through services like diversion or rapid rehousing and supports the resident’s stability and self-sufficiency. Street outreach brings access to these permanent housing services directly to people experiencing homelessness. Through these outreach efforts, we hope to increase exits from homelessness to permanent housing and reduce the duration of homelessness.
Many variables affect homelessness, making it important to collect the numbers and characteristics of people experiencing homelessness and information about services provided to them.
By separating the data, we can learn more about racial disparities in outcomes and the structural factors that contribute to them, including:
  • Poverty
  • Redlining
  • Mental and physical health
  • Incarceration

Typical Stay in Temporary Housing

Temporary housing refers to emergency shelters and other places meant for short-term stays such as safe parking sites, transitional housing, and hotel voucher programs. The goal of temporary housing is to provide safety and access to services such as permanent housing programs, employment programs, and case management.
Homelessness disproportionately impacts people of color.
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders and Black or African Americans had the longest stay in temporary housing, compared to demographics of others in the same type of housing. 
When we look closer at the data, we can see the disparities in outcomes. Populations that also had longer stays in temporary housing include:
  • Youth under 18 years old
  • People with disabilities
  • Females
  • Veterans

Housing Retention

Roughly 1 out of every 4 times a household has left the homeless crisis system and moved into permanent housing over the past 10 years, they have later returned to the system for support within just two years. There are many reasons people experience homelessness, but the top 2 reasons reported by unhoused residents in Pierce County include a family crisis and/or lack of affordable housing.
Returns to the homeless crisis system peaked in 2020 when hundreds of households needed homeless services again after previously exiting the system.
Despite the success of entering permanent housing, some people return to the homeless crisis system if they are at risk of becoming homeless again. Since 2020, return rates have decreased, and we are seeing fewer returns to the homeless crisis system within two years after individuals exit.
For more information about the definitions, calculations, and date ranges for these measures, click here for documentation.

Coming Soon

Pierce County will continue to provide data for additional measures through 2023.
Winter 2022
  • Contract award amount
Spring 2023
  • Shelter locations and proximity to need
Share your thoughts on our plan here. 

Resources

These dashboards are created by Pierce County as an informational resource on the issue of homelessness.
The data is gathered by the Tacoma/Lakewood/Pierce County Continuum of Care and homeless service providers.