Homelessness

This national training and technical assistance program was designed to help case managers across all of the Veterans Integrated Service Networks to successfully assist Veterans who are homeless, and their families, access and sustain housing via the U.S. Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Administration Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program.

PRA operated the HCHIIRC for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) from 1996-2008. PRA offered frontline providers and program staff easy access to the most current research and information about clinical practices, funding opportunities, and initiatives that impacted their work in providing access to primary care services to people and families who were experiencing homelessness. PRA maintained a comprehensive database, a collection of resources and tools, and a video lending library. PRA also planned and staffed the annual HCH conference showcasing state-of-the-art research and best practices.

PRA served as the coordinating center for SAMHSA’s groundbreaking Women, Co-occurring Disorders, and Violence Study (WCDVS) from 1998-2005. The WCDVS sought to develop, implement, and then evaluate the effectiveness of comprehensive, integrated, trauma-informed treatment models on outcomes for women with co-occurring disorders and trauma histories. PRA led the intervention development in Phase I of the study and the evaluation in Phase II. The Phase II evaluation followed over 2700 women, across nine study sites to examine outcomes across a variety of domains, as well as programmatic and cost outcomes.

PRA operated NRCHMI for SAMHSA from 1988 to 2004. Under PRA’s leadership, the Center became the national locus of information for evidence-based housing and service approaches for adults with behavioral health disorders who were homeless or at-risk of homelessness. PRA staff and consultants provided technical assistance to SAMHSA grantees, including the ACCESS Demonstration Program, the Collaborative Program to Prevent Homelessness, SAMHSA’s Supported Housing Study, and the Homeless Families Program.

PRA was part of a Coordinating Center team for SAMHSA’s Supportive Housing Initiative and Homeless Families Program, two SAMHSA-funded, multi-site evaluations of recovery services for individuals and families with behavioral health issues experiencing homelessness. PRA staff facilitated the multi-site Steering Committees, developed and piloted the common data collection protocols, and managed the logistics of the Steering Committees and Consumer Advisory Panels by facilitating teleconference calls and onsite meetings.

In 2009, PRA was awarded the ASPE’s Homeless Children’s Roundtable project. PRA worked with ASPE and three subject-matter experts to: (1) produce background papers that reviewed the research on young people experiencing homelessness and described key federal legislation related to homeless children and the range of federal services available to them; (2) convene a roundtable of researchers, policy experts, practitioners, and federal staff that discussed, assessed, and strategized how to improve services and long-term outcomes for young people who experience homelessness; and (3) summarize the proceedings of the roundtable so that ASPE staff could create a series of issue briefs.