Costs of service provision for participants in a Grants to Benefit Homeless Individuals program: Approach and preliminary results

In a time of limited public finances, service providers of care to homeless individuals need to understand the costs of providing these services. This presentation is one of a panel on a cross-evaluation of 25 recent grantees of the Grants to Benefit Homeless Individuals program, funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The presentation reports on the approach and preliminary findings of the economic component of the evaluation. Clients have current or recent substance use, and many have co-occurring mental health disorders. We describe the methods of obtaining the costs of services directly covered by the grantee as well as the correlated services that the grantee leverages. These correlated services are from within the grantee agency, from partner providers and from the existing social support system. There are varied services across sites, include substance abuse and mental health treatment, medical treatment, recovery support and other wrap-around services; all these frequently support clients' housing status. The costs of services provided under the grant are estimated using a protocol that includes a structured instrument completed by the evaluator and the grantee in tandem. That protocol also gathers qualitative data on key service areas to which clients are connected, in which clients may not have otherwise received services, but that are not covered directly by the SAMHSA grant. Emphasis is placed on the scope, challenges, and alternative approaches for collecting the data. Preliminary cost estimates are presented.