Improving Shelters and Quality of Care

Los Angeles has a continued undersupply of interim housing relative to the need. Despite recent progress opening additional interim beds, L.A. County continues to have a substantial street homeless population—with only 25% of the homeless population sheltered in a congregate setting. We also know that we must continue to focus on creating new permanent housing resources in order to achieve our long-term solution of ending homelessness. The best way to “create new” shelter is to better utilize the beds and improve efficiency and flow from street to home.

Shelter Improvement Initiative

With an initial seed investment from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, we launched a Shelter Improvement Initiative that is directly investing dollars into one-time capital and program improvements in target shelters. These investments focus on creating safer environments for staff and guests, promoting a better guest experience, infusing trauma-informed design elements, and rethinking use of space and service delivery models. Through these improvements, our goals are to achieve 95% utilization rates within funded shelters, reduce lengths of stay, increase exits to permanent housing, and overall create a better, trauma-informed experience for shelter clients.

Read more about the initiative

Interested in investing in the Shelter Improvement Initiative? Email homeforgood@unitedwayla.org.