CSH Initiatives and Products: Keeping Families Together

The financial and technical assistance funding comes from a $2 million grant from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies.

New York, NY | November 20, 2024 – CSH, a national nonprofit intermediary and Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) advancing supportive housing, has awarded a 24-month technical assistance package, including optional $100,000 grants, to housing and social service entities in Alaska, Washington, and Wisconsin. These entities and their partners will use the assistance and grants to co-design housing and service strategies with families and communities. The results will aim to reduce housing instability, child welfare involvement, and racial disparities, particularly among American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

The awardees are Newcap in Northeast Wisconsin; Child Welfare Academy at the University of Alaska Anchorage; and the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF).

The awards are part of a CSH initiative funded by a $2 million grant from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to promote cost-effective approaches to housing stability, reduce family separation, and align housing and services to transform systems. It builds on CSH’s work over the past three years with families, American Indian and Alaska Native child welfare experts, and communities in Minnesota and Washington to advance the Keeping Families Together (KFT) model.

“CSH congratulates these awardees for their commitment to keeping families intact and providing access to affordable housing and services. Also, these awardees have a track record of prioritizing equity, particularly since Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) are disproportionately impacted by child welfare involvement and housing instability,” said Andrew Johnson, Director of Systems Transformation, Families and Youth at CSH. “We are grateful to Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies for their generous resources that have been crucial to our work in supporting communities and strengthening housing and services systems to assist families better.”

Over the next two years, the awardees will receive CSH’s technical assistance and optional $100,000 grants to collaborate on strategies that reduce housing instability and child welfare involvement. This includes engaging cross-system partners, developing tools to identify family housing needs, and improving child welfare and housing systems.

Drawing from the CSH KFT model and national One Roof coalition, the technical assistance will include identifying and engaging cross-system partners to collaborate as they develop and implement housing and services to support housing stability, preservation, and family reunification. Technical assistance will also help develop tools or screening methods to identify family housing needs and improve child welfare and housing systems to better serve families most impacted by child welfare and housing instability.

The initiative addresses the significant impact of housing instability on families involved in the child welfare system, building on successful efforts in Minnesota and Washington. Existing sites in these states will continue to receive support and opportunities for additional grants and technical assistance.

“We are thrilled to support these outstanding organizations in Alaska, Washington, and Wisconsin through our technical assistance and grant program. Using our KFT model and One Roof coalition, we have learned that solving racial disparities, housing instability, and child welfare system involvement that drive high costs and inequity, requires sectors and systems to co-design solutions directly with the families they serve,” said Deborah De Santis, President and CEO at CSH.

The selected awardees provided statements upon receiving news about technical assistance and optional grant awards.

“This partnership will provide a way to deepen DCYF’s work with the twenty-nine federally recognized Tribes and urban Indian populations, and to engage with young people and families more meaningfully. Working with CSH on broader implementation planning and service delivery as well as focusing on effective outreach to these specific populations will support our mission to improve equity as DCYF rolls out contracted housing supportive services in counties across the state,” DCYF Housing & Homeless Prevention Administrator Cole Ketcherside said. “We are thrilled to continue working with CSH as we’ve already had success in providing housing support services in several communities currently being served.”

“We know that families below the poverty line are three times more likely to be substantiated for child maltreatment and that economic disparities and historical systemic disadvantages have fueled disproportionate child welfare system involvement among families of color; Black, Latino, and American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) families are disproportionately more likely to be poor due to longstanding systemic conditions,” said Alicia Laseck, Marketing Consultant with Newcap. “With support from CSH grants, we will create community and systems partnerships and will work together to drive amplified, large scale, equitable change for Native American families.”  

“This is a welcome opportunity to support at-risk families and youth by bringing together child welfare and housing systems to co-create solutions with those impacted by these systems. We look forward to leveraging the technical assistance and support to expand the state’s capacity to support families and reduce disparities, particularly among Alaska Native youth and families,” said Amanda Metivier, Director of the Child Welfare Academy.

ABOUT CSH

CSH (Corporation for Supportive Housing) advances affordable and accessible housing aligned with services by advocating for effective policies and funding, equitably investing in communities, and strengthening the supportive housing field. Since our founding in 1991, CSH has been the only national nonprofit intermediary focused solely on increasing the availability of supportive housing. Over the course of our work, we have created more than 467,600 units of affordable and supportive housing and distributed over $1.5 billion in loans and grants. Our workforce is central to accomplishing this work. We employ approximately 170 people across 30 states and U.S. Territories. As an intermediary, we do not directly develop or operate housing but center our approach on collaboration with a wide range of people, partners, and sectors. For more information, visit www.csh.org. 

ABOUT ONE ROOF

One Roof is an exciting national initiative to support local communities in developing and advancing practical and policy solutions for children, youth and families caught at the intersection of child welfare involvement and housing instability/homelessness. One Roof drives change by delivering improved and integrated solutions designed to safely preserve and reunify families facing housing instability, trauma, and child welfare involvement. One Roof builds its success on community collaboration, partnerships, and by leveraging common goals between housing and child welfare agencies. With the support of One Roof, hundreds of families have received supportive housing and been more efficiently served by child welfare and community partners. Visit 1RoofFamilies.org.

Media Contact: Jesse Dean, Director, Strategic Communications | jesse.dean@csh.org or 347-931-0132.

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CSH estimates that there are approximately 90,000 families and youth in need of supportive housing, including 43,646 families with child welfare involvement. While lack of housing should not necessitate child welfare involvement, housing instability alongside additional challenges such as substance use or mental health needs can affect the overall placement decision. Access to permanent housing often means that families can stay together while receiving child welfare prevention services or reunify more quickly if children are in out-of-home care. Research has demonstrated that children and youth who have a reliable place to call home also spend fewer days in foster care, experience a reduction in subsequent abuse and neglect cases, reduce their risk of subsequent homelessness, and increase their school attendance.

Housing vouchers and rental assistance play a significant role in keeping families together and supporting youth in transitioning successfully into adulthood. While most housing vouchers are issued from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) via local Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) , there are many states that have funded voucher and rental assistance programs for families and transition age youth. States like New Jersey, California, Washington, and Colorado have all developed and funded housing assistance to support child-welfare involved families and youth.

CSH recognizes that meaningful changes to decrease the disproportionate representation of families of color in child welfare and homelessness must be led by the people most impacted by these systems. CSH hired a part-time Keeping Families Together (KFT) Fellow to work with CSH staff in a one-year project to co-design CSH strategy and approach to engaging parents disproportionately impacted by child welfare and housing instability. The KFT co-design team approached their work in a relational way, co-creating every aspect of the work: from team meeting structure to determining final deliverables.

Below is a summary of major themes and recommendations from interviews and other experiments implemented by the KFT co-design team.

These briefs report on the impact of evictions on families and present information on what child welfare and family support leaders and their communities can do now to prevent evictions for families and the importance of immediate and long-term cross-sector prevention strategies. In addition, the briefs include a list of ten steps to advance a family eviction prevention plan aligned with broader shifts in child welfare policy and practice and efforts to build community-based preventative supports that strengthen families and keep children safe.

The publications were made possible in collaboration with Casey Family Programs, whose mission is to provide, improve – and ultimately prevent the need for – foster care.

May 2021 |This data brief guides system providers on how to better coordinate data and services for families involved with systems, such as child welfare, homelessness response, behavioral health, education and justice.

A new feature for attendees at CSH Summit 2019 offers interaction with peers, and concrete strategies and tools to implement in your community. The Connecting the Dots Design Labs are all about cross-system solutions, breaking down silos and better serving people in need of supportive housing as well as the community at large.

Participants in each Design Lab receive comprehensive exposure and experience over three-sessions:

• Session I: In the first session, participants take a deep dive into the issue and the complex challenges surrounding it – learning through data, their colleagues and experts.
• Session 2: In the second session, participants explore cutting edge solutions and generate ideas to take back to their communities.
• Session 3: In the third and final session, participants create action plans and presentations designed to garner support back home from critical partners, such as funders and elected officials.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SUMMIT

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Connecting the Dots Design Labs

Housing and Health Partnerships Can Improve Health Equity

The supportive and affordable housing sector is increasingly partnering with health care to improve systems and outcomes for shared clients. Common ground for these sectors includes enormous obligations, limited resources, vast regulatory requirements, and strong missions to help the most vulnerable in our communities. These sectors are essential partners as communities work toward addressing the issue of building health equity. This Design Lab will help participants forge the relationships necessary to build more equitable systems of care.

(IN)FUSE @ Summit

This Design Lab will empower participants to begin and then scale their own FUSE (Frequent Users Systems Engagement) projects, reorienting communities around a FUSE framework. FUSE is designed to identify, prioritize, and stabilize frequent users across the housing, health, and justice sectors through data sharing and supportive housing. Sessions will blend data analysis and information management techniques, community and peer engagement, and equity approaches with FUSE best practices. What you learn will help you build and grow a comprehensive, inclusive, and effective FUSE project.

Coordinated Entry System Refinement

Sustaining a successful Coordinated Entry System (CES) involves an iterative process that includes: (1) extensive and inclusive community feedback leading to refinements; (2) implementation of enhancements and expansion, and; (3) leadership through a racial equity lens. Join us in this Design Lab to learn the steps to facilitate review and refinement of your CES; how and why to expand your CES to include other mainstream systems; and ways to see data through a racial equity lens to help you use your CES to address inequities in your community.

Keeping Families Together

Keeping Families Together links housing providers with child welfare agencies to strengthen society’s most vulnerable families and protect children. Targeted to both new and experienced leaders in supportive housing, child welfare, and human services, this Design Lab will identify issues surrounding vulnerable families and build on multi-sector solutions that create equitable opportunities and improve outcomes. Explore collaborative implementation and systems realignment strategies, including leveraging the Family First Prevention Services Act, Family Unification Program and other resources.

REGISTER FOR SUMMIT NOW

Regional Partnership Grants to Increase the Well-Being of, and to Improve the Permanency Outcomes for, Children Affected by Substance Abuse

Application Due Date: August 13, 2018 by 11:59 PM ET

The Family First Prevention Services Act (Family First) was signed into law on February 9, 2018. This legislation creates historic reforms that are a positive step forward to help children remain safely with their families and support youth on a successful transition to adulthood by restructuring the main federal funding stream for child welfare to expand and enhance prevention efforts. The Family First Prevention Services Act amends Title IV-E and Title IV-B of the Social Security Act which governs federally funded child welfare activities across the country. Family First reauthorizes and updates the Regional Partnership Grants (RPG), targeted grants to increase the well-being of, and improve the permanency outcomes for, children affected by methamphetamine or other substance abuse. The updates to the grants better align with the new Title IV-E prevention services focus, including specifying mandatory partners, such as the public child welfare agency, appropriate courts and the state agency administering the substance abuse prevention and treatment block grant, as well as optional public and community based partners.

RPG grantees are to use specific, well-defined, and evidence-based programs that are also trauma-informed and targeted to the identified population. Earlier RPG grantees learned that it is important to include additional service sectors beyond the child welfare, court, and treatment providers. While housing and homeless response providers would not be the primary applicant, the need for housing solutions has been identified as a critical foundational need in prior rounds of RPG. Therefore, as communities consider applications for the 2018 grants, there is an exciting opportunity for housing providers and homeless response system partners to be included as a part of the teams receiving re-authorized and updated Regional Partnership grants under Title IV-B. Including housing providers and homeless system response partners in the Regional Partnership Grant program aligns with the program goal of helping states, tribes, and communities across the nation develop regional partnerships to provide, through interagency collaboration and integration, programs and services that increase permanency, safety and well-being outcomes of children who are in an out-of-home placement or are at risk of out-of-home placement as a result of a parental substance use.  The One Roof Roadmap highlights the need for collaborative structures and service models when implementing child welfare and supportive housing partnerships. These successful partnerships in jurisdictions implementing supportive housing aligned with CSH’s Keeping Families Together approach, have laid the ground work for integration in these regional partnerships. This RPG funding opportunity provides a mechanism for cross sector teams to move utilize funding to advance collaborative work that will allow for improved outcomes for families impacted by parental substance abuse and child welfare involvement.

A supportive housing approach aligns with the RPG which focuses on addressing common systemic and practice challenges that are barriers to optimal family outcomes, including engagement of parents in substance use treatment; differences in system paradigms and training; conflicting timeframes across the systems; and service shortages in child welfare services and substance use treatment systems. This works allows for alignment of whole family focused services and approaches. Quality supportive housing is recognized by SAMHSA and the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) as a best-practice for reducing chronic homelessness, which in turn leads to better outcomes for mental health and substance use disorders. Children receive the stability needed to reach their potential in school settings, parents receive the support needed to improve their own health and the health of their family, and ultimately, families are able to grow stronger together both during and after formal child welfare case involvement.

CSH began its supportive housing efforts for child welfare involved families through a small pilot program in New York City in 2007, which later blossomed into our signature program – Keeping Families Together (KFT).  The mix and intensity of KFT supportive housing services are tailored to the unique needs of each member of the family unit and address the trauma that many of these families have experienced. Utilizing a unique approach and collaborative service structure, supportive housing helps keep families together. Early successes with the initial KFT pilot led to the ACYF Partnerships to Demonstrate the Effectiveness of Supportive Housing for Families in the Child Welfare System, with the RTC evaluation scheduled for formal release January 2019. ACF highlighted supportive housing as a promising practice for child welfare families in the ACYF-CB-IM-17-03 Information Memorandum on Efforts by child welfare agencies, local communities, and federal agencies to end family and youth homelessness. The US Interagency Council’s recently released “Home Together: The federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness” highlights the importance of supportive housing and includes a strategy to utilize opportunities in child welfare policy to expand resources for community-based preventive services to support stable housing outcomes for children and families involved with, or at risk of involvement with, the child welfare system.

Grant information: https://ami.grantsolutions.gov/HHS-2018-ACF-ACYF-CU-1382

Information related to prior RPG grants: https://www.cffutures.org/ncsacw/#rpg_projects

Please contact us at 1Roof@csh.org to discuss further how this opportunity aligns with One Roof goals and local efforts.

Only a few years ago, the trajectory of the lives of Ronald and Felicia seemed headed toward separation and life-long struggle. The story of Ronald, a single dad, and his daughter, Felicia, is all too familiar for providers who work to ensure that Keeping Families Together supportive housing – the model championed through the One Roof campaign – is successful. Theirs was a family plagued by substance abuse, the instability of chronic homelessness and repeat involvement with the child welfare system. Like so many who are eventually saved by supportive housing, everything at first seemed destined to separate Ronald and Felicia. Obstacles, not opportunity, ruled their lives.

Child welfare involvement for Felicia began very early in her life because of outstanding cases involving her mother’s other children. As s single dad, Ronald fought hard to maintain employment, even while living in shelters, so he and Felicia could one day reunify in a home of their own. But his ability to find and keep affordable housing was an uphill battle.

Prior to supportive housing, they were homeless and living in the shelter system for nearly two years. Ronald’s heavy marijuana use led to further investigations and actions by the Administration for Children’s Services. The timeline of their struggles reflects the hardships they endured. Born in 1998, Felicia spent a total of 610 days of her young life in shelter care and another 585 in foster care. Understandably, she struggled with behavioral health challenges.

When Felicia was eight years old, she and Ronald caught a break and moved into supportive housing through the Keeping Families Together program, a signature effort pioneered by CSH and generously funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing. Ronald struggled with relapse and recovery, but intensive case management relying on constructive coordination between his supportive housing case manager and child welfare personnel helped him maintain his ability to parent.

With assistance and persistence, he found employment and started building a new life for himself and his daughter.

Now Felicia is a young woman in college, and Ronald is a highly involved parent. He is balancing fatherhood and work, and Felicia’s primary and behavioral health issues are being addressed.

This past April, Ronald and Felicia appeared before a Congressional briefing to tell their stories. They conveyed how drastically their lives have changed and how important it is to create more options for families dealing with multiple challenges, and how supportive housing can keep families together in an environment that stresses solutions rather than separation.

As they grow together toward a brighter future, Ronald credits the opportunity he found in supportive housing for the triumph of his family over obstacles that once seemed so daunting. Skeptical at first about Keeping Families Together supportive housing, Ronald and Felicia are now proud and vocal supporters of it and the One Roof campaign to increase its availability across the country.

Keeping Families Together would not have been possible without the investment of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which is the nation’s largest philanthropy dedicated solely to health.

Since 1972, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has supported research and programs targeting some of America’s most pressing health issues, from substance abuse to improving access to quality health care.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is working to build a national Culture of Health. Their goal is to help raise the health of everyone in the United States by placing well-being at the center of every aspect of life.

Although they have witnessed great progress, they also have noticed our nation has worked to improve health by focusing primarily on the health care system—when in fact, health is influenced significantly by where we live, learn, work and play.

Thanks to the persistence of social innovators across the country, every day we see strategies that are working and delivering results in a rapidly changing world. This ongoing blog series will highlight the voices of our Coalition of 70+ social innovators and their solutions to our country’s most pressing social problems, as well as examples of how this powerful work can be transformed into national change. Today we will hear from Deborah SeSantis, President and CEO of the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) about leveraging Pay for Success to create supportive housing, one of the dominating topics of discussion during the 2016 CSH Summit in Chicago.

Supportive housing is an innovative and proven solution to some of communities’ toughest problems. It combines affordable housing with services that help people who face the most complex challenges, such as the chronically homeless and individuals with acute health conditions, mental illness, substance abuse disorders, family instability and trauma, to live with stability, autonomy and dignity. Supportive housing is a significant and long-term investment, and identifying the necessary resources to ensure supply meets demand is an ongoing challenge. Fortunately, innovative financing tools such as Pay for Success can help make a difference.

The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) is a national leader in the supportive housing space that works with communities and special populations such as veterans and low-income families to uncover ways to implement innovative housing solutions even in the most complex environments, so our partners can achieve stability, strength and success for the most vulnerable people in the communities they live. Many of our efforts are focused on “super-utilizers,” people with very high utilization of crisis services, i.e. homeless shelters, emergency rooms, jails, and other public facilities.

Sadly, too many veterans fall into the super-utilizer category. After serving their country, they return to their communities with untreated medical, substance abuse or mental health challenges. Soon they find themselves impoverished, homeless, and getting temporary, often inadequate, attention wherever they can find a port in their personal storms. Supportive housing changes the trajectory of their lives. It provides them with the stability that comes with a permanent home and access to services to treat the problems that likely caused their instability in the first place.

Supportive housing benefits families too – some of whom are facing trauma that threatens to rip them apart. For these families, lack of adequate housing contributed directly to the decision to open child welfare cases, place children in out-of-home care, or delay reunification of children with parents. Reports indicate 50% of children in foster care were removed from homeless or unstably housed families. Supportive housing offers affordable, stable housing and allows families to stay together.

CSH is active in more than a dozen communities designing and implementing supportive housing initiatives through Pay for Success. We leverage this model because at the very core of Pay for Success, performance rises above promises. Under the premise of the Pay for Success model, private and philanthropic organizations and investors form strong partnerships with local or state governments and agree to provide upfront dollars to launch an initiative to combat a societal problem such as homelessness, high rates of incarceration and recidivism, or over-reliance on hospital emergency rooms for routine medical care. Providers must prove their programs or services are working before government pays a dime, and outcomes are rigorously scrutinized by independent evaluators to guarantee results are actually addressing the problem. Pay for Success has support on both sides of the political spectrum because it is based on the common-sense approach that taxpayers should not have to fund a program unless it works.

Supportive housing is a big investment for communities, but we know it can improve outcomes and brings down costs once housing and access to regular and preventative care is achieved. It is for this reason that CSH is exploring the promise of Pay for Success to secure and expand the resources necessary to move family supportive housing forward.

As we elevate supportive housing to serve more vulnerable individuals and families, collaborative advocacy with other Pay for Success advocates, such as America Forward, has been critical. Their efforts are bringing Pay for Success achievements and its potential to the forefront of conversations in Congress, state legislatures, city councils and the 2016 Presidential election cycle.

As the Presidential election cycle pivots to the general election, CSH is thrilled to partner with America Forward to engage candidates and channel support for expanding supportive housing opportunities for the individuals and families that need it. By highlighting what works for vulnerable people and taxpayers, we are shaping the movement for smarter government, and America Forward is helping its Coalition of organizations, including CSH, realize our collective goals of leveraging high-impact, results-driven solutions to transform many more lives across the country.

Read more about how social innovators in the America Forward Coalition, like CSH, are solving America’s biggest problems in communities across the country every day in our briefing book, Moving America Forward: Innovators Lead the Way to Unlocking America’s Potential, and join the conversation. Follow @CHSInfo and @America_Forward, and tell us how Pay for Success and supportive housing have impacted your community using #AFPresidential16.

The 18th Annual Meeting of the Supportive Housing Association of New Jersey (SHANJ) was held today, and CSH was there to present on the topics of Child Welfare Involved Family and Youth Supportive Housing innovations in New Jersey.

CSH led a two-part panel focused on the innovations used by the New Jersey Department of Children and Families (DCF) to develop supportive housing initiatives for child welfare involved families and youth aging out of care. Participants heard from the DCF leadership, providers and partners that have helped develop and implement these new initiatives.

Panelists included:

Allison Blake, Commissioner, DCF

Debra Lancaster, Director of Strategic Development, DCF

Jessica Trombetta, Executive Director of Adolescent Services, DCF

Krista Zuccheri, Chief Operating Officer, Family Connections, Inc.

Alexandria Riley, HomeSafe Manager, Family Connections, Inc.

Sasha Stokes, Family Advocate

Erin Burns-Maine, Senior Program Manager, CSH