CSH, in partnership with the Illinois Council on Developmental Disabilities (ICDD), is currently conducting a Supportive Housing Institute that includes 11 teams from across the state of Illinois. This four month training series is focused on the creation of integrated housing that will target supportive housing units to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Supportive housing differs in very significant ways from congregate-based housing options that have been the traditional base of the DD housing network. Supportive housing maximizes community integration and inclusion by incorporating living independently in housing that is governed by a lease (with protections and responsibilities), tenants choose their housing setting and location, services are voluntary and do not impact the access to housing, housing has privacy, and tenants control their own schedule, etc. In congregate settings, residents often lack privacy and live almost exclusively with others who experience the same disability, and daily activities (food, entertainment) are often regimented with little autonomy. Supportive housing services have been proven to help keep tenants connected to community and family and are aware of the threats to isolation when living more independently in a community.
Institute teams working to bring supportive housing to scale in IL include service partners, developers or development consultants in cases where teams plan to utilize public funding, and self advocates or family members of self advocates to ensure that lived experience is learned from as part of the planning process.
The service partners include the Association for Individual Development (AID), Centerstone, Community Choices, Heroes of the Game, Jewish Child and Family Services, Marcfirst, Protected Tomorrows, Ray Graham, and SouthSTAR Services.
CSH and ICDD will host a finale event on November 19th at the Prairie Capital Convention Center in Springfield, IL, where each team will present their vision for integrated supportive housing in their community, and steps they will take to make this possible. Please click here to learn more about our work to bring supportive housing to scale for this target population or contact john.fallon@csh.or or stephanie.sideman@csh.org for more information.
