Friday, September 19, 2025
What if we could predict when a family is about to lose their home—even before they know it themselves? What if we could step in with help before the eviction notice arrives, before a crisis turns into homelessness?
That’s exactly what we are building in Cincinnati through an innovative program called the Housing Stability Collaborative (HSC). And the program is transforming how we think about preventing homelessness.
A New Approach
Traditionally, housing assistance has been reactive. Families receive help after they’ve gotten an eviction notice, after they’ve lost their home, or after they’ve already become homeless. But the Housing Stability Collaborative uses predictive data analytics to intervene before any of those things happen.
The Housing Stability Collaborative, launched in July 2024 through the Impact Award from the City of Cincinnati. Strategies to End Homelessness is the lead, and partners include Bethany House Services, Found House IHN, Lighthouse Youth and Family Services, the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the YWCA Greater Cincinnati, the University of Cincinnati, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Using predictive data analytics, the program identifies families in the very early stages of a housing crisis—sometimes before the families themselves realize their situation could lead to housing loss.
Learning and Adapting
In the beginning, HSC faced initial challenges that required creative solutions. Early outreach efforts struggled with outdated contact information and inconsistent approaches across multiple organizations.
The team responded by centralizing outreach within Strategies to End Homelessness and partnering with Joybrand Creative to develop clear, supportive messaging for families. We are also looking into implementing new technologies like AI texting and voicemail drops to improve contact rates.
Real Impact
Services started in July 2024 and the first-year numbers tell a compelling story:
52 households were served with early intervention services
95% of families maintained stable permanent housing
The average assistance needed was just $226 per person or $679 per household—significantly less than downstream interventions
Families participated for an average of 119 days (3.9 months), shorter than traditional programs, allowing more families to be served
These outcomes represent more than statistics—they’re families who didn’t experience the trauma of eviction or homelessness. These are families that our Street Outreach Workers will not encounter living in their cars a year from now.
Insights
The Housing Stability Collaborative has generated valuable insights:
Communication is crucial: Engaging families who don’t yet recognize their risk requires careful, clear messaging
Data sharing is complex: Technical and legal hurdles make data collaboration challenging but essential
Research matters: Less than 1% of social service interventions have research supporting their effectiveness
Prevention works: Available data can identify at-risk households before they recognize the danger
Prevention saves money: Upstream services cost less than downstream crisis response
The program’s innovative approach has caught the attention of researchers. The Lab for Economic Opportunity (LEO) at the University of Notre Dame has selected the Housing Stability Collaborative for a randomized controlled trial starting in April 2026. This research will provide third-party verification of the intervention’s effectiveness and could be used to influence housing policy across the country.
The Future
Due to funding restraints, the Housing Stability Collaborative is currently only serving families in the City of Cincinnati. In the future, we would like to expand to serve single individuals and in a broader geographical footprint.
As housing costs continue to rise in Cincinnati, this model offers hope. The possibility of keeping families housed and communities stable through the power of prediction and early intervention.
The post Housing Stability Collaborative: Year One appeared first on Strategies to End Homelessness.