Before the Front Door

Help people stay housed, or find a safe place without entering shelter, through honest conversations and well-aimed flexible cash, without ever blocking the way to shelter or coordinated entry.

A self-paced field guide for access-point and intake staff, outreach workers, shelter intake staff, prevention case managers and housing navigators: anyone who has the first conversation with a household in a housing crisis. Rich Los Angeles context. Skills that work wherever you practice. Not legal advice and not software training.

What you'll be able to do

• Keep problem-solving a door, not a gate: never make finishing it, or succeeding at it, a condition of shelter or coordinated entry. Help the household use current access routes. Whether a bed is available, and what a program decides, are separate questions.
• Tell how urgent a household's situation is, what help might fit, and who decides—and connect notices and court papers to legal help the same day.
• Run a problem-solving (diversion) conversation that starts from the person's own strengths and networks, with their permission and a private safety check.
• Use flexible cash well: enough help to make a real option work, under the rules of the money you're spending.
• Make an arrangement hold, follow up safely, and record what really happened.

Included in the download

• 66-page field guide with five lessons. Each lesson has a layer-by-layer view (federal, California, LA County, other cities, and "check yours"), worked decisions, practice scenarios with model answers, self-checks with feedback, and numbered sources.
• Four printable one-page job aids: How close to the door?, The problem-solving conversation, Flexible cash check, and Make it hold.
• A Check Yours worksheet (PDF and Word) for finding your prevention and problem-solving funds, who decides eligibility, coordinated entry access and after-hours routes, legal aid and survivor services where you work.
• Start Here and a license for the tier you choose: one named person, a site team of up to 15 named users, or an agency of up to 50 named users.

Before you buy

• Sources: built on 137 legal, policy and research claims, each traced to its original source and read in full where noted. The sources include the ESG rule (24 CFR Part 576: prevention, rapid re-housing, financial assistance, evaluations), HUD's coordinated entry notice CPD-17-01, California eviction and deposit law (CCP §§1161, 1167; Civil Code §§1946.2, 1950.5), HHAP prevention and diversion uses, and the prevention studies from Santa Clara County, Chicago and New York City (Homebase), read from the papers. Rules were checked in October 2026.
• What it isn't: legal advice, a certification, or a replacement for your agency's policies, your funders' written standards or your coordinated entry policies. No agency endorsement is implied.
• Accessibility: the PDFs aren't certified PDF/UA accessible. The worksheet is also supplied in Word.

License options

• Individual Practitioner, $49: one named person.
• Program / Site Team, $199: up to 15 named users in one program at one address, or one established mobile or remote team.
• Agency / Multi-Site, $499: up to 50 named users across the programs and sites one organization runs directly (for a government buyer, one named department or bureau).

The license you choose is in LICENSE.txt in your download and governs use. Refunds follow the policy shown at checkout and applicable law.