USICH, HUD Release Criteria and Benchmark for Ending Chronic Homelessness

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and its 19 federal member agencies have adopted a vision of what it means to end homelessness in this country, ensuring that it is a rare, brief, and one-time occurrence. In order to help focus and drive progress, we are also developing specific criteria and benchmarks for communities to use as they take action toward goals set forth in Opening Doors.

Criteria and benchmarks work together to provide a complete picture of a community’s response to homelessness. While the criteria focus on describing essential elements and accomplishments of the community’s response, a benchmark serves as an indicator of whether and how effectively that system is working. These criteria and benchmarks represent our best thinking at this time. We will continue to review and evaluate their effectiveness as more communities approach and succeed in meeting these goals.

We know that permanent housing with individually tailored supportive services is the solution to chronic homelessness. To make sure all individuals experiencing chronic homelessness are on a quick path to permanent housing—and that no one else falls into chronic homelessness—communities need robust, coordinated systems that are focused on the same shared outcomes. These criteria and benchmark are intended to help communities build and fine-tune those systems, to help define the vision of ending chronic homelessness for individuals within communities, and to align local efforts in support of that vision, with a focus on long-term, lasting solutions.

Read more and download the criteria and benchmark to end chronic homelessness.