Read the complete article, Corporation for Supportive Housing: Helping the Homeless Live With Dignity.

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One of the Administration’s hallmarks has been a concerted effort to end homelessness. They’ve clearly demonstrated that they understand the cost of homelessness when we fail to solve the problem: homeless people wind up accessing far costlier emergency systems such as hospitals, jails and other institutions. This proposed budget reflects that in many ways—including $2.231 billion for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance programs, a 17% increase, and the inclusion of $75 million for 10,000 additional HUD-VASH vouchers. We also applaud the Administration’s proposal to add flexibility and enable Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) to “sponsor-based” assistance for homeless families. This flexibility will enable PHAs to do more supportive housing, and align vouchers and services to better serve homeless families. The budget also adds enough VA funds to stay on target and end homelessness among Veterans by 2015. In addition to VASH, the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program is recommended to be tripled to $300 million, and there is language to encourage programs to allow Grant and Per Diem recipients to transition in place to permanent housing.

Unfortunately, there are also many programs important to supportive housing with proposed level funding or even cuts. For example, the budget maintains last year’s 40% cut to the HOME program, and it cuts Section 811—Housing Program for Persons with Disabilities—by 9%. HOME provides key gap funding for supportive housing and the 811 program provides much-needed funding for people with disabilities.

Typically, Congress will debate the President's budget proposal through the spring and summer with the final appropriations bill passing in November or December. However, the politics of this election year are expected to further complicate how the budget and appropriations process moves forward. In the coming weeks, watch for action alerts from CSH to ensure, preserve and grow our efforts to end homelessness in America.

Here are some of the highlights from the President's Budget Proposal:

Key Proposed Increases and Policy Improvements

• McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Program is proposed to be increased by 17% to $2.231 billion.  This would help HUD implement key elements of the HEARTH Act.
• The Veterans Administration Supportive Housing (VASH) vouchers would receive $75 million in new funding, providing an additional 10,000 vouchers.
• Section 202 Housing Program for the Elderly is proposed to receive $475 million. That’s $100 million more than last year and a 27% increase from FY 2012.
• The President's budget includes specific language that would enable PHAs to “sponsor-base” some vouchers, allowing nonprofit organizations that provide family supportive services to receive voucher funding on a competitive basis.
• Requests $1 billion to capitalize the National Housing Trust Fund.
• Section 8 Tenant Based Rental Assistance Programs would receive $19 billion, a 1% increase; and would provide additional funding for administrative fees.

Key Proposed Program Cuts or Level Funding

• The President's past budgets (FY 2011 and FY 2012) proposed combining HUD housing vouchers with SAMHSA services funding and Medicaid. This was NOT included in the FY 2013 request.
• Section 8 Project Based Rental Assistance Programs would be cut by 7.7%, but HUD indicates this reduction will not reduce the number of households served.
• HOPWA would be cut by approximately $2 million.
• HOME program level funded from FY 2012 at $1 billion. This was a 40% cut from FY 2011.
• Requests $4.524 billion for the Public Housing Operating Fund and includes a proposal to allow PHA's to raise minimum rents.
• The Community Development Block Grant is level funded from FY 2012 at $2.948 billion.
• Section 811 Housing Program for Persons with Disabilities is proposed to be cut by 9% to $150 million.
• SAMHSA Homeless Grant Programs and the projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) are both proposed to be level funded from FY 2012 at $75 million and $65 million respectively.
• The Administration allocates $1.5 billion for Community Health Centers (which includes Health Care for the Homeless Programs) in health reform funding BUT a $5 million decrease in discretionary funding. This continues a trend of cutting CHC discretionary funding over the last two years, which has totaled approximately $1 billion in discretionary cuts. When matched with the health reform cuts, there still is an overall increase but not enough to grow CHC/HCH capacity to accommodate health needs for vulnerable populations, especially once health reform is fully implemented.

2012 Supportive Housing Conference

September 12 - 13

and Supportive Housing Bus Tour

September 11

Saint Paul RiverCenter

St. Paul, Minnesota

For more information and registration, visit our events page.

Topics for the Charrette included prevention, youth, systems integration, employment, interim and permanent housing. CSH staff facilitated the process, provided expertise, caucused with experts, and then distilled the information into a final report of recommendations.

The topic of interim housing roused the most discussion, with debates over the appropriate length of time for clients to stay in interim housing and the time frame for measuring clients’ progress. Participants contributed valuable perspective and suggestions toward a solution to get Chicago closer to our goal of ending homelessness.

Local and national press covered the Charrette, including this piece in The New York Times. CSH is proud to have worked with Chicago on this important planning process, and we look forward to leading Charrettes in more places across the country in 2012.

for photos of the event click here

For the last few years, CSH’s Innovations and Research team has kept a watchful eye on research findings that show supportive housing’s promise in dramatically improving health, mental health and substance use outcomes for tenants. Take a look at these numbers:

• 43% of tenants have improved mental health outcomes
• 15-30% tenants use less alcohol and drugs
• 50% report improve health status
• Higher survival rates, higher T-cell counts, and lower viral load among people living with HIV/AIDS
• 24% to 34% fewer emergency room visits
• 27% to 29% fewer hospital admissions and nights
• Decreases up to 87% in use of detox services and decreases in psychiatric admissions
• Reduction in Medicaid costs: 41 to 67% decrease in Medicaid costs.

You’re reading that right. When it comes to the highest-cost users of publicly funded services, supportive housing can improve health outcomes while actually lowering public costs.

There’s real promise in these numbers, and CSH is on a mission to prove definitively that supportive housing is not just a roof and a bed, but a cost-effective healthcare intervention and a solution for health policy.

We’re leveraging our $2.3 million Social Innovation Fund grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service to start test programs in communities across the country. CSH was one of just 16 organizations selected by the federal government for this honor—and we’re dedicated to using this opportunity to its fullest potential. The supportive housing and health programs that are part of this initiative will leverage the original SIF grant, as well as a dollar-for-dollar match raised by CSH and an additional match raised by subgrantees.

There’s no time better for this initiative than now. One of the most pressing problems states and communities face today is spiraling Medicaid spending--spending that is in large part caused by a small subset of people with complex health conditions (often referred to as the “5:50” population: the 5% that comprise 50% of Medicaid costs). We’re going to demonstrate how supportive housing can be an integral part of states’ strategies to bend the Medicaid cost curve--not to mention improve the health of some of their most vulnerable and poorest citizens.

Our RFP review process is in full swing and we’ll announce the communities and nonprofits who we’ll be working with in just a few weeks. Together, selected grantees and CSH will implement housing and health solutions for the “5:50.”

To be successful, we’ll need to get creative. Supportive housing is traditionally run by specialized organizations focused on homelessness or housing. But our initiative calls for cutting-edge models that build new kinds of partnerships between housing providers and health services. We’re going to link supportive housing with care management and health services—creating an integrated model that we believe could be the future of supportive housing. A rigorous evaluation will test the effectiveness of these models, so we can take a close look at how to build solutions that work best.

We’re on the precipice of an exciting period of discovery—and we are thrilled with the response from potential subgrantees, partners and funders for this effort. Thousands of RFPs were downloaded off of csh.org, and we’re engaged is conversations with funders from around the country.

Given this tremendous and widespread response, we see real potential to expand our demonstration beyond the first set of subgrantees and are currently exploring ways to generate the resources to support a larger initiative.

CSH and the Social Innovation Fund have sparked a new movement, and we can’t wait to see where it leads. You can be sure that we’ll let you know, so keep an eye on CSH as we explore how the integration of supportive housing and health services can become a new solution that eases the burden on our public pockets and improve improving the lives of some of the most vulnerable men and women in our country.

learn more about the csh social innovation fund initiative

We are issuing a Request for Qualifications from organizations with demonstrated capacity and experience to conduct a multi-year, multi-site, quasi-experimental evaluation of the CSH SIF demonstration program.  The RFQ includes a description of the demonstration program, an overview of the objectives and goals of the evaluation, a draft scope of services and tasks, and guidelines and timeline for submission.

Complete RFQ available here

Submissions are due to CSH by 5:00 p.m. PT on February 29, 2012.

All questions pertaining to this RFQ should be  emailed to Jacquelyn Anderson, Senior Program Manager. 

We're focusing on the population of frequent users of (usually) county-funded public services, such as jails, hospital emergency services, mental health servces and shelters. These men and women have chronic health coniditons that cause them to cycle in and out of crisis sytems of care and homelessness--at great public expense and with limited positive human outcomes.  Placing these people in supportive housing will improve their life outcomes, more efficiently use public resources, and likely create cost-avoidance in crisis systems.

CSH is very excited about the opportunity to work with counties in states all over the country, from Florida and Georgia to Nebraska, Oregon, Texas and beyond.  Expanding our FUSE supportive housing model, which has demonstrated positive human and cost outcomes in several ongoing evalations, will help promote systems change in the criminal justice and emergency response systems.

This development is part of the Super Bowl Legacy Project that began after Indianapolis was selected to host the 2012 Bowl game by the Super Bowl Host Committee. Including (1) Family education, health and fitness; (2) housing development and redevelopment; (3) business and economic development, and infrastructure improvements; and (4) special events and promotions, the Legacy Project has helped the residents of this neighborhood improve their environment and lives. The building that is now the Commonwealth Apartments was once an Indianapolis Public School, and this apartment building includes a full gymnasium, community space, and a rooftop youth sports area.

Click here to view the show, More Than a Game: The Indy Super Bowl Legacy.

New Jersey Special Needs Housing Trust Fund Strategy Meeting
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
State House Annex Room 4, Trenton, NJ
10:00 am to 12:00 pm

For more information, contact Richard Brown of Monarch Housing Associates at: rbrown@monarchhousing.org or 908-272-5363 x225.