Area of Expertise: Policy and Advocacy

Homelessness is rising nationwide, and recent policy proposals risk framing the issue through punitive measures rather than proven solutions. This resource provides evidence-based talking points to counter misconceptions, highlight effective strategies, and advocate for approaches that prioritize personal autonomy, fiscal responsibility, and long-term impact. Use these insights to promote community-based, voluntary support systems over costly, ineffective enforcement tactics.

A cost analysis developed by the Pennsylvania Supportive Housing Coalition

The Pennsylvania Supportive Housing Coalition’s Supportive Services workgroup has developed a new analysis using budget data from Pennsylvania providers to uncover how current funding structures impact service delivery.

This cost analysis identifies significant challenges that Pennsylvania providers face because of inadequate services funding. These challenges relate to provider wages, caseload size, administrative burdens, and other critical elements that must be addressed to provide high-quality services that keep people stably housed.

This one-pager provides five proven state actions to reduce unsheltered homelessness. In response to recent executive orders, these practical, evidence-based strategies for responding to unsheltered homelessness deliver measurable results.

The growth of supportive housing over the last 30 years has been built on a foundation of research showing that it provides core benefits to people and communities. CSH compiled this list of selected literature on supportive housing from the last 20 years as a resource. Please review each source carefully to understand how to apply it to your work. Download a summary of outcomes in supportive housing including many of these listed sources by clicking here.

This guide outlines five essential outcomes every successful supportive housing program should target, drawn from the larger CSH Quality Supportive Housing Standards. The Quality Standards provides a roadmap for creating and operating supportive housing that will best
achieve meaningful results. CSH encourages organizations to know their baseline performance regarding these outcomes and set ambitious goals to drive ongoing progress.

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.

H.R.1 is estimated to reduce federal spending on Medicaid by more than $1 trillion over ten years, and cause as many as ten million people to lose their health insurance.

The new law enacts policy and funding changes to key housing development financing tools: the Private Activity Bonds (PABs) and 4% Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Program and the 9% LIHTC Program.

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.

H.R.1, as signed into law on July 4, 2025, contains more than three hundred provisions that change tax policies and entitlement programs, including many that impact the supportive housing industry and the people we serve. CSH’s initial impact analysis is focused on three sections of the law that will require state-level decisions in the short term.