Area of Expertise: Housing Lending and Development

Navigating the financing of supportive housing can be complex—especially when projects require multiple capital, operating, and services funding sources. The Road Map to Financing Supportive Housing in Pennsylvania is a practical resource designed to help developers, service providers, public agencies, and community partners understand and align the key funding streams that make supportive housing possible.

This roadmap outlines current federal, state, and local public funding sources commonly used to develop and sustain permanent supportive housing across Pennsylvania. It covers capital for development and preservation, rental assistance and operating subsidies to keep housing affordable, and service funding that promotes housing stability for people with disabilities, behavioral health needs, and those at risk of or experiencing homelessness. Updated for 2026, the guide reflects Pennsylvania’s current policy and funding landscape and highlights opportunities to braid housing, health, and human services resources.

Whether you are early in project planning or refining a financing strategy, this roadmap offers a clear starting point for building strong, sustainable supportive housing in Pennsylvania.

The first New York Supportive Housing Institute, a signature initiative of CSH, brought together a cohort of emerging developer teams for intensive and interactive workshops covering all aspects of creating quality affordable and supportive housing. The Institute provided tools and support to help teams build their project plans and convert them into reality.

Mentorship was a core component of the NY Institute. Each team was connected with a mentor who had deep expertise in affordable and supportive housing development in New York. Teams graduated from the Institute with a housing development plan and a path for acquiring funding. The cohort will collectively produce more than 400 new affordable and supportive homes across NYC, Long Island, and Westchester. The Institute ran from January 2025 until September 2025.

We extend our deepest thanks to all our sponsors, especially Deutsche Bank, whose generous support made this initiative possible.

The ‘Road Map to Financing Supportive Housing in New Jersey’ provides developers, service providers, community partners, owners and funders with resources to build supportive housing. There is no single “go-to” source to build and sustain supportive housing. However, this Road Map seeks to identify public funding sources and resources that typically leverage private capital and lending.

NJ Prospecting Tools for Developers

This resource provides developers and nonprofit partners with practical tools and strategies to identify and pursue funding opportunities in New Jersey. It outlines key types of grant makers, offers guidance on building effective funder relationships, and highlights national and state‑specific prospecting tools to support housing and services development. Designed as a companion to the Road Map to Financing Supportive Housing in New Jersey, this resource helps developers diversify funding sources that can be used for gap financing and other critical needs in supportive housing projects.

Supportive Housing Case Studies — Navigating the Financing of Small and Medium‑Sized Projects 

CSH is grateful to the Affordable Housing Alliance (ADA) for this session that brings listeners inside two  supportive housing developments, tracing their journey from early concept through completion. Chris Pugliese, AHA’s Chief Property Development Officer in Monmouth County, breaks down how capital, operating, and service funding streams come together in real projects.

Both projects spotlighted have supportive housing dedicated to people who were formerly homeless, a (small) 3‑unit project and a (medium) 67‑unit LIHTC development with a 5‑unit supportive set‑aside. Click here to watch the recording.

Supportive housing combines affordable housing with supportive services to help people who face the most complex challenges live with stability, autonomy, and dignity. CSH created these standards to guide a wide range of groups—including tenant leaders, housing developers, landlords, service providers, funders, property managers, government officials, and health care organizations—to work together to build and operate high-quality supportive housing.

The Quality Standards apply to all types of projects, whether site-based or scattered-site, and in rural, suburban, or urban areas. How the standards are put into practice may vary due to the diversity of supportive housing models.

This resource breaks down the core components of supportive housing and explains how to align a project with the CSH Quality Standards when planning a new development. 

This critical resource will identify the need for the creation of 38,000 units of supportive housing, the anticipated cost of addressing this need, and recommendations for funding mechanisms that have been proven to expand the resources needed to create supportive housing opportunities.

The purpose of this Supportive Housing Property Management Plan (SHPMP) is to provide guidance to housing providers that operate housing programs that serve people who have experienced homelessness, are at-risk homelessness, or face barriers to housing, including people with extremely low-income, disabilities, poor rental or credit histories, and justice-involved histories. Property Managers who provide this type of housing should coordinate with supportive service providers to ensure their tenants can utilize services, both on-site and off-site, to maintain stable housing and meet these needs.

The SHPMP contains 19 sections, each with critical context, promising practice guidance, and key questions to consider when developing supportive housing programs and property management plans. 

The purpose of this Supportive Housing Services Plan (SHSP) Template and Guidebook is to provide guidance to supportive housing programs—both scattered-site and site-based—that serve people who have experienced homelessness, are at-risk homelessness, or face barriers to obtaining housing. Service providers should coordinate with property management to ensure tenants are connected to services both on-site and off-site that support long-term housing stability. 

The Supportive Housing Services Plan Guidebook contains 16 sections, each offering essential context, promising practice guidance, and key questions to consider when developing supportive housing programs and housing services plans. 

There are many types of agreements that need to be executed during the supportive housing development process. This document describes different circumstances that require an agreement and the different elements of a development partnership agreement. It also provides space for developers to take notes and track progress on the various agreements they are executing. Practitioners can utilize the fillable fields to record agreement details, note outstanding tasks, and track progress toward execution.

These recommendations encompass a statewide action plan to end homelessness and address Pennsylvania’s need for supportive housing. These recommendations incorporate feedback from the Pennsylvania Supportive Housing Coalition members along with core elements of other effective state plans on homelessness.