Geography: National

This animated learning module will explore differences in Medicaid waivers and State plan amendments while showcasing implementation approaches health centers can use to effectively respond to care gaps and best practice strategies that lead to sustainable improved patient health outcomes.

This workbook can be used to assess readiness, understand the next action steps, begin to identify potential partners within their local community, and connect to resources for ongoing support.

This toolkit will explore health information technology (HIT) platforms and how they can be used to uncover health care needs and support strategic decision making that improves patient health outcomes. Health centers and PCA leaders who use this toolkit will learn best practice approaches for effective integration of closed-loop referral networks that elevate the patient and family experience.

This desk guide offers a distilled set of messaging principles from CSH’s narrative research with Housing Narrative Lab. It provides clear, tested language and audience insights to help practitioners and partners craft effective, values‑based messages about supportive housing. Designed for quick reference, it highlights what resonates, what to avoid, and how to communicate supportive housing in ways that build trust and strengthen public understanding.

Stay Tuned for the Interactive Messaging Guide
A full interactive version of the Shifting the Narrative Messaging Guide is coming soon. It will offer an easy, digital way to explore the research, audience insights, and tested messaging strategies developed by CSH and Housing Narrative Lab. The interactive guide will make it simple to find effective language, understand what resonates, and craft messages that strengthen support for supportive housing.

Disclosure: This article is part of CSH’s Tech Corner series exploring technology trends and innovations in supportive housing. Mention of specific companies, products, or services is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement by CSH. CSH does not receive compensation from the organizations referenced in this article. 

Operating supportive housing and other rental assistance programs can be administratively complex, particularly when programs rely on multiple funding sources with different eligibility requirements, reporting expectations, and compliance rules.  Those complexities can increase the risk of errors, duplicate payments, improper expenditures, and compliance challenges. As communities look for ways to strengthen accountability, safeguard public resources, reduce administrative burden, and improve oversight of public funds, technology is playing an increasingly important role in supportive housing program administration. 

CSH’s Tech Team has been exploring how supportive housing providers, Continuums of Care (CoCs), and housing administrators are using technology to support program operations. While no single technology solution is right for every community, several common themes have emerged as organizations work to modernize supportive housing administration. 

Key Questions for Organizations Exploring New Technology to Enhance Supportive Housing Operations 

Before adopting new technology, organizations may want to consider: 

• Where do errors, delays, or administrative bottlenecks occur today (e.g. eligibility determinations, inspections, documentation, payments, or reporting)? 

• How can funding requirements be embedded into workflows so staff do not have to rely solely on memory to maintain compliance? 

• How are responsibilities for requesting, reviewing, approving, and issuing payments documented and tracked? 

• Are frontline staff spending significant time on administrative functions that could be streamlined or centralized? 

• If AI-enabled tools are used, what safeguards are in place to protect sensitive client information and ensure appropriate use? 

To better understand how technology vendors and supportive housing administrators are approaching these challenges, CSH recently spoke with Mike Shore and Kevin McKee of Padmission.  

Padmission grew out of the work of HOM, Inc., an organization that administers rental assistance and housing programs. According to Shore, his experience working in housing programs beginning in the 1990s highlighted the administrative complexity involved in managing eligibility, inspections, landlord payments, compliance requirements, and reporting across multiple funding sources. As housing programs expanded, HOM developed technology tools to help manage those processes more efficiently. Those efforts ultimately evolved into Padmission and its Journey platform. 

Because Padmission’s technology was developed in the context of administering housing programs, the conversation focused less on a specific product and more on broader lessons related to supportive housing administration, technology adoption, and the potential role of AI in reducing administrative burden. While the examples below draw from Padmission’s experience, many of the themes apply more broadly across the supportive housing field. 

Q&A: Technology, Administration, and AI in Supportive Housing 

Kim Keaton, CSH: Many housing programs are looking for ways to improve accountability and manage increasingly complex funding requirements. What challenges do you see organizations facing today? 

Mike Shore: 

Housing programs today often braid together multiple funding sources—HUD CoC, local funds, private funding—each with different rules, timelines, and reporting requirements. When that complexity is managed in spreadsheets and email, it creates risk: inconsistent documentation, delayed payments, and, in some cases, opportunities for misuse. 

Every action—whether it’s a rent calculation, a payment, or an eligibility decision—is tied to program requirements, documented, and auditable. That level of transparency does multiple things: it reduces the administrative burden of compliance, and it builds trust with funders, auditors, and the public. It also gives insight into program operations that many teams never thought they could have, including reducing under- or over-spending grant dollars due to a lack of timely information. 

Preventing fraud isn’t about assuming bad intent; it’s about designing systems where inconsistencies are visible, controls are built in, and the right thing is the easy thing. 

Kim Keaton, CSH: AI is generating both excitement and concern across the field. How do you see AI tools impacting the field, especially amid concerns about jobs being replaced? 

Kevin McKee: 

There is real promise in AI, especially in reducing documentation burden, improving data quality, and making systems more responsive. For a field that is often under-resourced, those gains matter. 

At the same time, the fear about job displacement is understandable. But in supportive housing, the core work is deeply human: building trust with a tenant, supporting someone through instability, and partnering with landlords. Those aren’t easily automated. 

What I see happening is a shift: 

• Less time spent on repetitive administrative tasks 

• More time available for direct human engagement 

We focus AI on high-volume, repetitive work that pulls staff away from people—document review, data extraction, and compliance checks—so automation can do the heavy lifting, and staff can focus on judgment and relationships. Our goal isn’t to use AI for its own sake; it’s to apply it where it removes burden and improves accuracy in ways that matter. 

The organizations that will benefit most are the ones that treat AI as an augmentation tool, not a replacement strategy. If we implement it thoughtfully, AI can elevate the role of frontline staff, not diminish it. 

Kim Keaton, CSH: If you could change one thing about how supportive housing operates today, what would it be? 

Mike Shore: 

I would push for greater centralization and professionalization of housing program administration. 

In many communities, we ask service providers to do everything: outreach, case management, landlord engagement, compliance, and financial administration. That’s an enormous lift, and it spreads expertise thin. 

We’ve seen that when communities centralize functions like rental assistance administration and landlord engagement, and pair that with purpose-built technology, the system becomes more efficient and more effective. 

The results include: 

• Faster time to housing 

• More consistent program delivery 

• Better experiences for landlords 

• Stronger accountability to funders 

This approach also allows service providers to concentrate on what they do best: supporting people. If we can align structure, technology, and roles in a more intentional way, we can improve outcomes at scale without adding burden to the teams doing the work. 

Key Takeaways for the Field 

The interview reinforced several themes that emerged during CSH’s recent technology convening: 

• Technology adoption should begin with clearly defined operational challenges rather than a search for the newest tool. 

• Administrative processes involving compliance, documentation, reporting, and payment management may present strong opportunities for automation and workflow improvement. 

• AI appears most promising when used to support staff productivity and reduce repetitive tasks rather than replace human judgment. 

• Strong data governance, privacy protections, staff training, and change-management practices are essential for successful implementation. 

• Technology can support program integrity by improving documentation, creating audit trails, strengthening compliance with funding requirements, and reducing the risk of errors or improper payments. 

• No single technology solution will work for every organization, and communities should carefully evaluate options based on their own needs, resources, and goals. 

Closing Thoughts 

As supportive housing organizations continue exploring new technologies, the ultimate goal remains unchanged: helping people obtain and maintain stable housing. Technology is most valuable when it reduces unnecessary administrative burden, strengthens accountability, and allows staff to spend more time focused on the people they serve. 

Have you implemented a technology solution, process improvement, or staffing model that has helped your organization reduce administrative burden or improve service delivery? The Tech Corner team would love to hear from you and feature lessons learned from the field in a future installment. 

On June 19^th, just days before the 27th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C., the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memo advancing an interpretation of the Olmstead decision that breaks from decades of established precedent. The memo questions whether the Olmstead decision requires states to serve people with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. As the DOJ acknowledged, the new interpretation is out of step with how federal courts have understood Olmstead since 1999.

CSH is deeply concerned about this departure. Defending and advancing Olmstead is central to our work. The core principle— that people with disabilities should be able to live, work, and thrive in the community of their choice — is the foundation of supportive housing. At its heart, Olmstead recognized that no one should be cut off from their families, friends, and people they love simply to receive the care they need.

Olmstead has shaped how states support people with disabilities for nearly three decades. Courts across the country have consistently affirmed its core principle: that unnecessary isolation is a form of discrimination. That principle has guided state investment and practice. It has moved systems toward community-based housing and services that help people achieve stability, health, and independence. 

This does not mean that treatment and housing are at odds. Some people, at some point in their lives, need intensive clinical care, including time-limited stays in hospitals or residential settings. A strong system includes that full continuum, but those settings work best as a bridge to stable community living, not a substitute for it. The choice is not between treatment and housing. Both are essential, and neither works in isolation.  

The harder truth is that legal standards are only part of what stands between a person and a life of their choosing in the community. America faces a severe shortage of affordable housing and wide gaps in access to care. Efforts to expand access to evidence-based treatment supports, particularly community-based models, would be more effective than focusing on compelling services that simply are not available. These realities do more than any legal interpretation to determine whether someone with any disability including serious mental illness stays housed or falls into homelessness. Without a stable home, too many people either languish in institutional care or leave institutional care only to cycle back through emergency rooms, shelters, and jails.

Our FUSE work had demonstrated for more than two decades that when communities prioritize intensive services with housing, even people with the most complex needs find stability and recovery while communities enjoy reduced homelessness and costs associated with institutionalization.

North Carolina shows what is possible and what it takes to ensure that people have freedom of choice and the opportunity to thrive. Before 2012, the state relied on large, segregated adult care homes to serve people with serious mental illnesses. Those conditions resemble what this memo would now treat as legally acceptable. The DOJ found that this reliance violated the ADA and Olmstead, and that the resulting agreement required the state to build supportive housing and community-based services.

Building that capacity took the state more than a decade, several extensions, and sustained public investment, and the work continues today. The work required new levels of cross-sector collaboration between the housing and health sector state and community leaders.  That investment has helped thousands of North Carolinians leave institutional settings for homes of their own.

The DOJ memo targets the very tool that drove progress. North Carolina’s problem was a shortage of housing and services. The legal expectation to integrate is what finally pushed the state to address the shortage. Removing that expectation, while the capacity gap remains, abandons people in the middle of a transition that is finally helping them.

Stepping back from community-based housing and services will push more people, and more cost, onto public systems. Institutional and crisis care is much more expensive than supportive housing, by many estimates more than three times as much per person. Without stable housing to exit to, that spending recirculates through repeated hospitalizations, law enforcement contacts, and time in jail, with little lasting stability to show for it.

The evidence of the last quarter century points in one direction. Supportive housing and community-based care improve health, strengthen communities, and reduce reliance on costly crisis systems. As policymakers and state leaders study this memo, the strongest path forward is to follow the evidence and build on community integration for people with disabilities by: expanding supportive housing, strengthening access to mental health and substance use care, and ensuring a full continuum of support that meets people where they are.

CSH remains committed to working with federal, state, and local partners so that every person has access to safe, stable housing and the support they need to thrive in the community.

This policy brief outlines a Supportive Services Transformation Fund (SSTF), a state financing strategy designed to expand supportive housing services for people with disabilities, complex health needs, and individuals experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The brief explains how SSTFs can fill gaps in Medicaid funding by supporting non-reimbursable services, provider capacity building, and program evaluation. It highlights successful implementations in Michigan and Nevada, demonstrating how targeted investments can improve housing stability, increase economic outcomes, reduce reliance on crisis systems, and create pathways to sustainable Medicaid financing.

This sample testimony can be adapted for legislative committee hearings on bills that impose fines, penalties, arrests, incarceration, or other criminal sanctions on people experiencing homelessness. Customize the testimony to reflect your organization’s experience, local data, and the specific bill under consideration.

Action alerts help organizations quickly mobilize supporters when legislation is moving through the legislative process. They are especially useful before key decision points such as: committee hearings, floor votes, budget negotiations, or other key decision points when lawmakers need to hear directly from constituents.

This sample letter can be adapted and shared with committee members and legislative staff when legislation is being considered that would impose fines, penalties, arrests, incarceration, or other criminal sanctions on people experiencing homelessness. Customize the language to reflect your organization’s experience, local data, and the specific bill under consideration.