Austin/Travis County, one of 10 communities nationwide, will launch a homelessness prevention system to keep at risk families stably housed

AUSTIN, TEXAS (Feb. 24, 2026) – ECHO announced today that Austin/Travis County is partnering with Right at Home, a new national initiative to stop homelessness before it starts. Working with Destination: Home and a coalition of national organizations, ECHO will develop and implement a local homelessness prevention system to keep more than 1,000 families stably housed over the next five years, while working to generate evidence that homelessness prevention works and is scalable nationwide. Austin/Travis County is one of 10 pilot sites across the nation participating in this initiative.

Research shows that half of all U.S. renters cannot afford their housing costs, and economic pressures are pushing more people into crisis every day. Homelessness is at historic highs in the country and in Austin/Travis County, we estimate around 5,000 people experience homelessness on a given night.

“There’s a lot of great work happening in Austin right now to keep people in their homes,” said Ashleigh Hamilton, ECHO’s Right at Home Austin Program Manager. “At the same time, not everyone needs the same thing, and traditional systems can’t always meet someone’s need. Through the Right at Home initiative, we’re bringing community and partners to the table to coordinate a prevention system that centers a whatever-it-takes approach to keeping people housed.”

Working with the City of Austin, Travis County, and the community, ECHO is developing a local prevention system in Austin/Travis County that builds on a proven prevention model, spearheaded by Destination: Home in Santa Clara County, CA. The Santa Clara model provides rapid, flexible financial assistance, alongside case management, to support families on the brink of losing their homes. By intervening earlier, this approach helps families avoid the profound trauma of homelessness and reduces the need for far more costly public interventions after housing has been lost—such as shelters, emergency healthcare, and other crisis services.

The approach not only prevents homelessness, but has also demonstrated strong cost effectiveness: more than 90% of participating households remained stably housed two years later, and a randomized controlled trial conducted by the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at Notre Dame found that every $1 invested saved almost $2.50 ($2.47) in benefits to the community.

Prevention services currently available in Austin/Travis County focus on responding to imminent housing crises – preventing eviction with resources like rent assistance or support with moving costs. These services are critical for people in crisis, but not everyone facing housing instability is in a situation that qualifies. Right at Home Austin envisions a comprehensive, proactive, communitywide prevention system that provides for people’s long-term stability and wellbeing.

“The single most obvious solution to homelessness is stopping it before it starts,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home. “We have demonstrated that targeted homelessness prevention works, and we are excited that ECHO is partnering with Right at Home to help scale this proven model to match the need across the country.”

Progress in Austin/Travis County
Right at Home Austin kicked off initial community conversations in September 2025, convening established prevention partners and national experts to understand the current landscape and start envisioning a communitywide approach to preventing homelessness.

ECHO launched a series of community input sessions, called Rooted Voices, in January 2026. These sessions are designed to solicit feedback from people in Austin/Travis County who know firsthand what it’s like to face housing insecurity and what’s needed to keep people housed.

As the Rooted Voices series concludes, ECHO will coordinate with local and national partners to design and implement a communitywide homelessness prevention system in summer 2026. ECHO published a timeline on our website that will be updated as the process moves forward.

More About Right at Home
To date, Destination: Home has secured $77 million in new funding to support the Right at Home initiative. Funders include The Audacious Project—a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED that encourages the world’s greatest changemakers to dream bigger—Cisco, Sobrato Philanthropies, and the Valhalla Foundation. The initiative will provide funding to participating communities to develop and implement their local prevention systems. ECHO has received a $500,000 planning grant and expects to receive a minimum of $5 million over the next three years for implementation of its homelessness prevention system in Austin/Travis County.

The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at Notre Dame will work with ECHO and the other pilot communities to test and rigorously evaluate the impact of rapid, flexible financial assistance, and inform the case for a national prevention policy.

Right at Home community partners to date include Alaska (Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness); Atlanta, GA (Partners for HOME); Austin/Travis County, TX (Ending Community Homelessness Coalition); County of San Mateo, CA; Denver-Adams County, CO (Metro Denver Continuum of Care); Miami-Dade County FL (Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust); Minnesota (Minnesota Tribal Collaborative Pathways to Housing); Western NC (Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care).