Tenant Satisfaction With a Single-Site Housing First Program

Housing First is a model of permanent supportive housing for individuals experiencing homelessness guided by harm reduction principles and delivered in both single-site and scattered-site settings. Research suggests Housing First tenants experience greater housing satisfaction than those in more restrictive living situations, but studies to date have not specifically explored satisfaction with single-site (i.e., all apartments in 1 building) Housing First programs. This study examined housing satisfaction among a convenience sample of tenants of a single-site Housing First program (N = 33) who were administered the Housing Environment Survey (HES). Sixty-one percent of participants indicated a desire to stay in the housing program. Those who wanted to stay reported more favorable perceptions of the quality of their physical environment and neighborhood compared with those who indicated a desire to leave. A qualitative review of open-ended HES responses yielded 8 positive themes, such as housing location, and 5 negative themes, including drug activity. The findings highlight a need for single-site Housing First providers to attend to tenant perceptions of the housing environment and address broader challenges associated with this housing model. Future research with representative samples of programs is needed to gain a more comprehensive understanding of residential satisfaction in single-site Housing First models.