LEO partnered with Catholic Charities Chicago to study its Homelessness Prevention Call Center. The evaluation found that people who received money to help them stay in their homes were 88% less likely to be homeless after three months and 76% less likely to be homeless after six months, and that it cost about half as much to keep a family in its home than it did to house a family after it became homeless.
“[This research has] been extremely valuable to the call center,” [call center director Wendy] Avila said, noting that more money was earmarked for homelessness prevention and the amount available to each family was increased after the study came out. “We did a follow up with the clients and we found that 67 percent of the callers were stably housed two years later because of the assistance they received. We started with $2,500 per household and now go up to $5,000. I think that being able to say we know what we are doing is working is important.”