Area of Expertise: Housing Preservation

Supportive housing is a critical solution to homelessness, but much of the nation’s existing supply is at risk. This April 2026 briefing from CSH highlights the growing crisis facing supportive housing properties, including deferred maintenance, rising operating costs, and limited funding options. Drawing on examples from states and localities across the country, the report outlines promising preservation strategies—such as grants, low-interest financing, and targeted programs—to stabilize and sustain these vital homes. With preservation far more cost-effective than new development, this resource offers actionable insights for policymakers and practitioners working to protect supportive housing and prevent further loss.

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.

For more than 30 years, supportive housing has transformed lives. The CSH Operations Clinic helps ensure properties continue to thrive by strengthening day-to-day operations and long-term sustainability. This one-pager describes the clinic and how it helps improve performance, stabilize operations, and better support tenants.

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. 

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. 

The purpose of the CSH Supportive Housing Services Staffing and Budget Tool is to support agencies, communities, and project planners to estimate comprehensive costs for supportive housing services. The tool uses a template that includes built-in assumptions around best practice for four staffing models: Assertive Community Treatment (ACT), Intensive Case Management (ICM), Tenancy Support Services (TSS), and Critical Time Intervention (CTI). Each of these models is well-researched and has a strong evidence base for efficacy with supportive housing tenants across a variety of constituencies. The tool allows the user to model out scattered site and project-based programs and input their average staffing costs, budget assumptions, and productivity expectations to determine rates needed by agencies for a fiscally sustainable program.

Last updated: August 2025

Speaking with supportive housing tenants about their finances can be challenging and sometimes uncomfortable. Income and expenses are often very private and sensitive matters for people. Being clear, direct, and respectful can help with navigating these discussions and ensuring tenants understand their rental obligations. This document is meant to serve as a primer for supportive housing staff (services and property management) on how to assist tenants with paying rent on time and in full (and how to help them when they can’t).

Rental and operating subsidies are critically important funding resources in supportive housing developments for people with extremely low incomes. Subsidies keep rents affordable while ensuring that the property owner has enough income to maintain and manage the property during the lifetime of the development. Subsidies ensure that tenants are less rent burdened by reducing their rent to no more than 30% of their income and that the building has sufficient revenue for operations.  As operating expenses increase, the revenue for the building must keep pace to cover these costs. Supportive housing providers should have a practice and policy to request increases annually or as eligible. Receiving subsidy increases when eligible provides more revenue to pay for maintenance and repairs, and ensures the building has funds to safely and stably house residents. This guide helps you understand how to implement this practice and resources for program specific rules.