The most immediate takeaway is undeniably encouraging: whereas 83% of respondents were homeless or housing insecure when they filed their disability claims, over half reported being stably housed at the time of the survey.

We used three broad categories to describe the living arrangements tracked in this survey. Here’s what we mean by each:

• Stably Housed – renting or owning a house, apartment or room, subsidized housing programs or vouchers, or living in a long-term arrangement with family or friends.
• Housing Insecure – transitional housing programs, congregate settings like recovery houses or residential treatment facilities, couch surfing, or staying in a hotel-type arrangement.
• Homeless – staying in a shelter or other emergency housing program or living outside or in a place not meant for habitation, like a car or abandoned house.

When asked to use one word to describe their housing situations before receiving Social Security income, most respondents used negative descriptors like “nightmare,” “depressing,” and “unbearable.”

Compare that with the way respondents spoke about their current housing situations: a majority used positive words like “secure,” “amazing,” and “peaceful.”

When we looked closely at the current housing statuses of our respondents, we were further encouraged to see that the majority of those who reported being homeless or housing insecure at the time of survey were only awarded benefits in 2025, in some instances only a few months before the survey was conducted in Fall 2025. They simply had not had sufficient time to move into stable housing yet.

When we look at these subgroups, two numbers jump out:

• 72 – percentage of respondents stably housed at time of survey whose benefits began before 2025, up from 57% of our full pool of responses.
• 0 – number of respondents who were homeless at time of survey whose benefits began before 2025 AND who received their benefits via HAP’s SOAR Project.

The zero feels incredible. How to account for it? Is there something special about HAP’s SOAR Project that renders our clients somehow more protected against homelessness? Well, maybe. We intentionally and strategically align our SOAR Project with community partnerships in Philadelphia in order to take a more holistic approach to chronic homelessness. At the same time someone is referred to HAP for SOAR, they are often connected with case management supports, treatment, and housing programs—many of which are contingent upon having stable income in place, such as disability benefits. We attribute a good deal of our clients’ success to these partnerships. Notably, almost 80% of this subgroup was in stable housing at the time of the survey.

That said, we were only able to reach about 10% of our former clients from the past five or so years, and it’s impossible to know the housing outcomes of all the clients that we were unable to contact. We cannot assume that all of the former clients who we failed to reach are not in stable housing—a changed phone number indicates a changed phone number, and nothing much more than that. Someone failing to respond to a letter about the survey we sent does not mean the mail didn’t find them. Which is all to say that we were of course happy to learn that none of our clients from 2024 or before had fallen into homelessness again, but we do not construe the zero as completely representative, either.

The thing that does feel representative? That 72% of the respondents whose benefits had been in place for a year or so were in stable housing at the time of the survey. It’s an overwhelming confirmation that, given a little bit of time to mature, stable income does translate into stable housing for most people.

We asked our respondents four questions to understand their history of homelessness and benefits: how long ago they first became homeless; how long ago they began to receive income from Social Security; how long ago they moved into their current housing; and how many different living/housing arrangements they have had since being awarded benefits. To evaluate the time it takes for Social Security income to impact homelessness, it was necessary to isolate the results to a subgroup of respondents who moved exactly once.

Although eight months is a short time relative to a twelve-year history of homelessness, it might not feel that way to our respondents. So why did it take so long for this income to translate to housing? This subgroup largely consisted of HAP clients, who had to wait for openings and processing times for housing programs after they were approved for benefits. And as we’ll see in the takeaway below, their patience was largely rewarded, since it is very difficult to maintain stable housing without the kind of support provided by these housing programs.

When we compare the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Philadelphia, which is just over $1600, with the monthly amount of SSI income—$967 in 2025—we are a little amazed by the results of our survey. It’s why we wanted to conduct it in the first place. It’s worth a moment, then, to consider more specifically the type of housing our respondents are talking about.

Only one quarter of respondents attained stable housing with their Social Security income alone. The rest rely on subsidies, residential programs, or friends and family. As noted above, one key reason for our SOAR Project’s success is our long-term partnerships with housing programs, and that certainly seems to be borne out in these survey results. If we want to be serious about ending homelessness, it is important to recognize that SSI income—at its current maximum rate of under $1000 per month—is rarely enough on its own.

We asked each respondent about their income and housing costs, including rent and utilities, and we learned that two thirds of the stably housed respondents were housing cost burdened, meaning they spent more than 30% of their total income on rent and utilities. As the graph above illustrates, respondents who do not receive rental assistance spend more of their income on housing costs. We also asked the survey respondents whether there was anything they “went without,” and just over half of them provided some response. Food was the most mentioned category, though generally all responses to this question cited some immediate need put off for another month, like clothing, cleaning products, or bill payments. As the below graph illustrates, survey respondents who do not receive rental assistance go without significantly more basic necessities than those who have housing subsidies and support. We note again that although Social Security benefits are conceived of as a social safety net, the monthly amount is low enough that many people are still touching the ground.

We did not need to conduct a survey to know that having some form of income, even when it doesn’t end someone’s homelessness, at least reduces its harm. It’s impossible to precisely measure the dignity and peace of mind that comes with the ability to afford basic necessities. Instead, we tried to examine health and welfare by using various social determinants of health as a framing for indicators, and we asked our respondents which among them would be impacted were they to lose their income.

What surprised us?   

The number of respondents who thought that their health and mental health would be compromised if they lost their monthly income from disability benefits. This was surprising since the vast majority of HAP clients qualify for Medicaid coverage whether or not they receive disability benefits. The survey responses indicate that overall health and wellbeing are impacted by more than just insurance coverage; stable income allows people to travel to their providers of choice, buy healthier and more nutritious food, and afford a winter coat to stay warm in winter.

It’s also worth qualifying some of the responses about employment status. Although about half of all respondents reported that a loss of income would impact their employment status, meaning they would have to attempt to return to work, most of the comments from this subset reveal the difficulty or impossibility of this:

• “It would have to be limited given the shape I’m in.”
• “Can’t work because of head injury. It would be impossible…would affect me majorly.”
• “[I] would be panhandling.”

Something we contend with all the time in our disability work is that a person’s baseline has a lot to do with external stressors and support systems in place. We see it often: people achieve some stability and start to feel good, attempt to work, decompensate, and lose their job. It follows then that pushing people beyond their limits to work has a direct impact on their overall wellbeing.

We didn’t know what to expect when we added this question to the end of our survey. It was inspired by a former client who called us one day out of the blue to let us know that with the income we helped him secure through our SOAR Project, he was able to buy a scooter, and that he loved it very much. We had some vague thought that if we were to ask everyone to name the one thing they used their income for, it might elicit more similarly joyful responses. The responses we actually received, reflected in the bubble chart above, were more sobering.

Two things inform our analysis of these responses: 1) nationally, the Social Security Administration denies the applications of the vast majority of people experiencing homelessness at a rate disproportionate to the general public; and 2) our survey respondents first experienced homelessness over 7 years prior to being awarded income, on average. The graphic above helps us get a sense of how people are choosing to spend their money from Social Security, but when we consider it a second time we recognize these as the things that–for an average of seven years and in disproportionate numbers–people are going without.