1. Transitions between Homelessness States(Safe Haven, Temporary Housing , Emergency Shelter and Unsheltered) Before and After Operation Rio Grande in the Salt Lake Metropolitan Area Prem Narayanan- UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
SUMMARY
This presentation explores the ways that Operation Rio Grande influenced the transitions between Safe Haven, Temporary Housing, Emergency Shelter and Unsheltered States in the population of homeless adults in the Salt Lake Metropolitan Area from HUD Point-In-Time estimates over 12 years, and the effect of Operation Rio Grande on the transitions.
Operation Rio Grande is "an unprecedented partnership between state and local governments coming together to restore public safety and order in the Rio Grande Area(Downtown Salt Lake City)" with the common goal of preventing and minimizing homelessness ,increasing the number of successful exits from shelter to housing, eliminating open drug use and reducing crime. The estimated cost for the operation is $67 Million.
The numbers of arrivals in each state are assumed to be independent and identically distributed random variables. Transition Rates between the between Safe Haven, Temporary Housing, Emergency Shelter and Unsheltered states were calculated to develop a multi-state Markov Model and analyze the results of the Operation Rio Grande intervention.

2. Transitions between Homelessness States(Safe Haven, Temporary Housing , Emergency Shelter and Unsheltered) Before and After Operation Rio Grande in the Salt Lake Metropolitan Area Prem Narayanan- UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
METHODOLOGY
Housing status was considered as a transient state falling in one of these three qualitatively different housing situations:
Temporary Housing
Emergency Shelter
Unsheltered States: sleeping in parks, cars, buildings etc
Safe Haven [Not Applicable in Utah]
These states were modeled as a Multi State Markov Chain , which estimates the probability of making transitions between different states over a time period[ ] and the impact of covariates(population growth data from US Census Bureau and ORG effect) on these transition probabilities. Transitions between different states are a simple first-order Markov process with no constraints on transitions between the states.

3. TRANSITION PROBABILITES CHAIN STEP PROBABILITY PREDICTION
Transitions between Homelessness States(Safe Haven, Temporary Housing , Emergency Shelter and Unsheltered) Before and After Operation Rio Grande in the Salt Lake Metropolitan Area Prem Narayanan- UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
TRANSITION PROBABILITES
CHAIN STEP PROBABILITY PREDICTION

4. Transitions between Homelessness States(Safe Haven, Temporary Housing , Emergency Shelter and Unsheltered) Before and After Operation Rio Grande in the Salt Lake Metropolitan Area Prem Narayanan- UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
LIMITATIONS
HUD-defined continuums of care do not coincide exactly with the boundaries of cities and counties
Measurement accuracy improves over time which means more homeless are being counted
HUD measurements take place usually on a single night in January. Homelessness is affected by the weather, so these numbers will have a discernible bias for winter conditions in Utah.
DATA
The data for the study comes from the U.S. Census Bureau and longitudinal data collected by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Point-In-Time estimates of the homeless population in Utah.

5. Transitions between Homelessness States(Safe Haven, Temporary Housing , Emergency Shelter and Unsheltered) Before and After Operation Rio Grande in the Salt Lake Metropolitan Area Prem Narayanan- UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
CONCLUSIONS
Operation Rio Grade which started in Summer 2017 seems to having a positive overall effect on the homelessness situation, however, the chain step prediction model indicates that there is likely to be an increase in Unsheltered Homeless for the next couple of years, with a much faster reduction in the number of Homeless people living in Temporary Housing and Emergency Shelters.
This maybe an indication of the need for more housing to accommodate the unsheltered homeless, with a focus on the intervention needs of the transitions.