The most effective way to reduce homelessness is to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.

We’ve known this intuitively for a long time. Now, we have the results to support it.

In 2009, LifeWire participated in a three-year pilot project called Domestic Violence Housing First. The project focused on moving survivors of domestic violence into stable housing as quickly as possible.

Most of the people we served through LifeWire’s housing programs had already become homeless or were perilously close to becoming homeless. We used this pilot project to get and keep survivors in safe and permanent housing. In order to do that, we provided flexible funds to pay for any number of expenses that would prevent a family from remaining or becoming housed. Sometimes, all a survivor needed was temporary child care. Other times, they needed help paying a security deposit.

It worked. More than 90 percent of the families we served remained in permanent housing more than a year later. These families, who were already suffering from trauma, could now live without fear of further abuse.

The Domestic Violence Housing First pilot project showed such promising results that King County Executive Dow Constantine is using it as a model for the Kids, Youth and Family Homelessness Prevention Initiative. This is the first initiative that will be funded using money from the Best Starts for Kids levy, approved by voters last November.

For this Initiative, Constantine proposes to invest $19 million to prevent homelessness. His proposal is focused three things:

• Housing first. When we focus on keeping a family from becoming homeless in the first place, issues such as unemployment or chemical dependency are easier to resolve.

• Knowing what a client actually needs. The best results come when advocates simply ask “What is it you need right now to avoid becoming homeless?”

• Act quickly. Agencies like LifeWire are better able to help families who are facing homelessness when they have the flexibility to meet each individual’s needs right away.

It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. For decades, funding requirements have restricted domestic violence agencies like LifeWire to offering emergency shelter as our response to our community’s ever-growing homelessness epidemic. While this approach was, and continues to be, a lifeline for many families in crisis, we now know that flexible funds are critical to keeping families from ever experiencing homelessness in the first place.

In my 10 years at LifeWire, I have seen this shift to homelessness prevention save countless lives. And as LifeWire transitions to a new executive director following my retirement this June, I know our community is better equipped now more than ever before to prevent and end family homelessness, once and for all.

This week, the Kids, Youth and Family Homelessness Prevention Initiative will move to the King County Council for approval. I urge them to pass the initiative, which is rooted in proven and effective housing first principles. It is, simply put, the best way to keep families out of homelessness and in safe and stable homes.

I see how devastating the fear of homelessness is for the survivors and children we serve every single day. If we can take that fear away, we can begin the process of helping them heal from the trauma of domestic violence. Keeping vulnerable families from becoming homeless has the power to save lives. That’s a simple, yet powerful truth.

Barbara Langdon is the executive director of LifeWire. Located in Bellevue, LifeWire is a leading domestic violence agency in Washington state and has served more than 131,000 domestic violence survivors since 1982.