Improving Housing Outcomes for Homeless Veterans

VA Office of Research and Development

Status: Completed

Conditions: Homeless Persons; Veterans; Mentally Ill Persons

Treatments: Behavioral: Housing Skills Training Group

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT03646149

CDX 18-004

CDA 15-074 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Many homeless Veterans with serious mental illness (SMI) enroll in the VA's Supported Housing (VASH) program but struggle to obtain and sustain housing. Social skills are an important-but underappreciated-determinant of housing outcomes for homeless adults. The investigators hypothesize that homeless Veterans with SMI who participate in a social skills training program, tailored for housing-related social skills, will obtain housing quicker, retain housing longer, and show improved mental health outcomes compared to Veterans with similar needs not participating in such a program.

Enrollment: 35 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Identified by VA Greater Los Angeles homeless program staff as a participant in Housing Skills Training:

  • Must have a history of homelessness
  • Must be a Veteran over the age of 18 years
  • Must have a serious mental illness (mood disorder, anxiety disorder, psychotic disorder)

Exclusion criteria

None

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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35 participants in 1 patient group

Housing Skills Training Group Patients

Experimental group

Description:

Homeless Veterans with serious mental illness who are inpatient at the VA Greater Los Angeles Domiciliary or enrolled in a VA Supported Housing (VASH) program and participating in a Housing Skills Training Group as part of routine clinical care. The intervention was 12 sessions long, with one session per week.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Housing Skills Training Group