Project Roomkey: Lessons learned from a massive program to save the lives of homeless people

LOS ANGELES — The state program that provided private hotel and motel rooms for homeless people during the COVID pandemic improved healthcare for thousands and provided valuable lessons for how shelters could better serve their clients, a two-year study has found.

The study released Monday by the research and consulting firm Abt Global concluded that Project Roomkey served its primary goals of saving lives during the pandemic and relieving stress on the healthcare system.

"Not only were people getting inside, they were getting treated for healthcare conditions that had never been treated since they became homeless," Nichole Fiore, lead author and principal associate at Abt Global said in an interview.

But the inability to connect information collected at the hotel and motel sites with statewide data from health, housing and other public services agencies left the researchers with only anecdotal evidence to substantiate that conclusion.

"They all use different data systems that do not talk to each other," Fiore said.

Among its recommendations, Abt Global, formerly Abt Associates, said better data sharing agreements are needed across state agencies and departments.

"We need to understand how people are interacting with the many public systems, programs and benefits, which combination of programs and benefits are best at preventing and resolving homelessness and who is most at risk for homelessness," the authors wrote.

The study, funded by the California Health Care Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, gathered data from an online survey of Project Homekey funded agencies in 45 counties, telephone interviews with providers in 15 counties and site visits in five counties including interviews with 67 current and former clients.

The researchers also had access to administrative data from the California Department of Social Services collected from the Project Homekey agencies, and homeless databases from three counties: Los Angeles, Ventura and Tulare.

The CDSS data provided an overall picture showing that 62,000 people obtained rooms across the state. The program peaked in October of 2020 with just under 13,000 clients. That number declined steadily to just a few by the end of 2023.

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