After years of bouncing between homeless shelters and substance abuse treatment programs, when Annemarie Wallace and her family moved into permanent supportive housing at Palladia’s Fox Point, she thought “everything happens for a reason. We got out of one place to so we could get into someplace better. Maybe this is for me.” Last night’s MetroFocus shared the story of how supportive housing made it possible for Annemarie’s family to thrive. MetroFocus also visited Common Ground’s Prince George, a 416 unit supportive housing development for low-income and formerly homeless adults and persons with HIV/AIDS.
Palladia is one of CSH’s Keeping Families Together Pilot providers, combining affordable housing with customized case management services. The pilot served 29 families which all had significant, sometimes intergenerational, histories of child welfare involvement, substance abuse or mental illness, interpersonal violence and trauma and homelessness. Child welfare involvement among Keeping Families Together families declined significantly during the pilot and most families had no new abuse or neglect cases after moving to supportive housing. Six children were reunited with their families from foster care—and were still with them when the pilot ended. Average school attendance improved steadily among Keeping Families Together school children.
CSH is excited that Mayor Bill de Blasio has outlined a commitment to to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing over the next 10 years, including new supportive housing in the Housing New York plan.
Read More: Campaign 4 NY/NY Housing
