Emergency Shelter: Emergency shelter means any facility, the primary purpose of which is to provide a temporary shelter for the homeless in general or for specific populations of the homeless and which does not require occupants to sign leases or occupancy agreements.

Safe Haven: Safe Haven, as defined in the Supportive Housing Program, is a form of supportive housing that serves hard-to-reach homeless persons with severe mental illness who come primarily from the streets and have been unable or unwilling to participate in housing or supportive services. To continue to be renewed as a Safe Haven, the project: Must be located in a facility, meaning a structure, or structures, or clearly identifiable portion of a structure or structures;
Must allow 24-hour residence for an unspecified duration;
Must have private or semi-private accommodations;
Must limit overnight occupancy to no more than 25 persons;
Must prohibit the use of illegal drugs in the facility;
Must provide access to needed services in a low demand facility, but cannot require program participants to utilize them; and
May include a drop-in center as part of outreach activities.

Transitional Housing: Transitional housing (TH) is designed to provide homeless individuals and families with the interim stability and support to successfully move to and maintain permanent housing. Transitional housing may be used to cover the costs of up to 24 months of housing with accompanying supportive services. Program participants must have a lease (or sublease) or occupancy agreement in place when residing in transitional housing. The provisions of the CoC Program’s TH program component have not changed significantly from the TH provisions under SHP.

Unsheltered/ Unsheltered Rate: This includes individuals and families with a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, including a car, park, abandoned building, bus or train station, airport, or camping ground.

ES= Emergency Shelter SO= Street Outreach SH= Safe Haven TH= Transitional Housing

Continuums of Care: Continuums of Care (CoCs) are HUD-supported regional planning bodies that coordinate housing and services funding for people experiencing homelessness. In 2021, Massachusetts had 12 CoC’s, defined below.

Households with Children: A household with only children is any household comprised only of children under 18 years of age. This includes unaccompanied children, adolescent parents and their children, adolescent siblings, and any other household configurations composed only of children.

Chronically Homeless: Chronic homelessness has been defined as a single individual (or head of household) with a disabling condition who has either: Experienced homelessness for longer than a year, during which time the individual may have lived in a shelter, Safe Haven, or a place not meant for human habitation