The impact of Housing First participation on police-reported crime and crime severity

Housing First (HF) addresses chronic homelessness by admitting individuals into permanent shelter regardless of their situation. Studies using self-reported data suggest that HF can potentially decrease justice system use, but they are limited by inaccurate measurement of police contacts. This study uses administrative data from police to measure the change in number of police interactions, change in average crime weight (or importance of crime), and change in the distribution of crime weight, before and after HF. Six hundred and two chronically homeless individuals with a history of criminal involvement and who were accommodated by an HF shelter between three months to a year were eligible for this study. We use unconditional quantile regression to observe HF's effect on changes in the distribution of crime weights over time. While the average crime weight increased during the study period (57-79.1), the average number of police interactions decreased. Statistically significant decreases of approximately 5 crime weight units were observed between percentiles 0.54 and 0.65 and decreases of approximately 15 crime weight units occurred at percentiles 0.73 and 0.81. HF is effective at reducing minor crimes at the highest end of the distribution and helping those experiencing homelessness to avoid the warrant cycle.