Spokane CHHS staff presented the fiscal year 2024

25 fourth-quarter performance review to the City Council study session, saying the quarter offers a year-long snapshot of homeless services across prevention, diversion, shelters and housing programs. Amanda (CHHS staff) told councilors the reporting window covered July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025, and that the system served roughly 10,000 unique clients and spent about $21 million of approximately $24.5 million awarded.

The review broke results down by program type. CHHS reported that diversion programs served 759 clients with 478 (about 68%) exiting to permanent housing and an 11% return-to-homelessness rate (reported on a two-year lookback). Coordinated entry saw about 3,000 households assessed with an average 28-day wait for a referral and roughly 41% of referrals resulting in successful placements once openings occurred. Eviction-prevention programs that include rental assistance served about 734 households and generally produced higher retention in existing housing than diversion programs, which currently lack a formal rental-subsidy pathway.

"The benefit of setting aside a designated time is that fourth quarter really gives us that year snapshot of how projects are doing," Ariel (CHHS staff) said at the start of the presentation (05:29:42). Amanda added that program reporting uses the established five-year plan metrics and that newer projects will be evaluated under the 2025

30 five-year plan metrics.

Councilors repeatedly pressed staff for more precise breakdowns and fiscal context. Questions focused on:

- Definitions and comparability: Several councilors asked CHHS to disaggregate who was "literally homeless" versus "at imminent risk" in diversion outcomes and asked that the term "exit" be used consistently across programs. CHHS staff said program goals differ and that federal and local performance measures can define exits differently by intervention type.

- Aggregate system progress: Councilmember Cathcart asked whether the 10,000-person count shrinks once program exits are tallied; CHHS said the longitudinal systems analysis (LSA) can calculate systemwide exits and that the 10,000 number is deduplicated across identifiable clients but may include duplicates among anonymous records.

- Spending and cost-per-exit: Multiple councilors requested program-level spending and cost-per-exit calculations. CHHS said QPR documents posted to the CHHS website include program spending and that the Department of Commerce statewide expenditure reports provide cost-per-client benchmarks; staff cautioned that computing a per-person, cross-provider lifetime cost (street-to-housing) is analytically complex.

Program highlights CHHS summarized include:

- Single-adult diversion (SNAP): 147 clients served; 42 exited to permanent housing. CHHS noted diversion currently generally cannot offer rental subsidies.

- Catholic Charities family diversion and coordinated family assessment: hundreds served with family diversion reporting higher percentage exits to permanent housing in several programs.

- Shelters and outreach: Night-by-night shelters served roughly 3,000 clients across multiple providers; street outreach reported an average 3-day time to full engagement from first contact. Continuous-stay shelters and scattered sites were presented separately and include utilization and return metrics.

- Rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing (PSH): Rapid rehousing served hundreds (357 households reported in one rollup); PSH served 298 clients with 257 maintaining or exiting to permanent housing and a low return rate (~3.7%). CHHS reported income-growth measures for programs that include employment or benefits increases as part of case management.

CHHS staff acknowledged limits in some program data: newer pilots and programs that started within the last 12 months lack two-year return windows, making return-to-homelessness metrics unavailable for those sites. Staff also said RFP committees for CHHS and the Continuum of Care (CoC) will use the performance data to consider reallocations and priority funding in upcoming procurement cycles.

Councilors and staff identified follow-up items for CHHS to deliver to council: (1) program-level spending in the QPRs and a cost-per-exit or cost-per-stay analysis where feasible; (2) LSA-derived, intervention-level summaries to show which interventions produce the most durable exits; (3) a small set of case-study narratives tracing cost and service pathways for representative clients to help public communication.

No formal votes or ordinance actions were taken during the presentation portion of the study session; CHHS staff said recommended contract awards from recent RFP rounds will be routed to the CHHS board and returned to council for consideration in the regular public process.

The review concluded with staff offering to post detailed QPR materials on the CHHS website and to return with LSA-derived analyses and additional program-level financial detail at subsequent briefings.