California Policy Lab

Solid Ground is a two-year homelessness prevention pilot administered by New Economics for Women (NEW) that aims to serve families in the 91405 zip code (Van Nuys, California) whose less severe housing issues make them ineligible for traditional prevention services. A family may be eligible for Brief Solid Ground or Full Solid Ground, depending on the family’s score on the Prevention Targeting Tool. Brief Solid Ground consists of one day of services that may include: brief case management services; mediation and/or landlord dispute resolution services; referrals to mainstream benefits and/or other community resources; referral and linkage to legal services; and limited financial assistance (transportation and grocery cards). Full Solid Ground includes six months of all of the services available to Brief Solid Ground participants, in addition to direct financial assistance such as rental assistance (though not all Full Solid Ground participants receive financial assistance). This is the Year Two Interim Report for Solid Ground. The first year of the Solid Ground pilot program began on September 1, 2018 and ended on September 30, 2019 (“Year One”). The second year of the Solid Ground pilot program began on October 1, 2019 and ended on September 30, 2020 (“Year Two”). In Year One, Solid Ground met its goal of enrolling 30 Full and 50 Brief participant households. In Year Two, program staff also aimed to enroll 30 Full and 50 Brief participants, but because of barriers to outreach, intake, and eligibility raised by the pandemic, staff were only able to enroll 14 Full participants and 66 Brief participants.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278