Population: Frequent Users

Due to COVID-19, stay in place and social distancing protocols, supportive housing providers have been utilizing technology to stay connected and support tenants during this difficult time. In the context of remaining socially distant and preventing greater spread of COVID-19, supportive housing providers can use telephone, smart phone or other technology options to give the best possible support to their tenants.

Technology can be used as a complement to faceto-face services, and also as a service on its own. Technology options can be especially useful for people with depression or suffering from distress, and when there are difficulties in physically meeting with tenants. The most important feature of any communication is the quality of the relationship between the tenant and the case manager. Tenant choice and public health concerns for staff and tenants need to be balanced as the world adapts to COVID-19.

This fact sheet provides Tips for Using Technology to Support Tenants in Supportive Housing.

This is part of a series of factsheets for Health Centers. You might also consider downloading:

• Telehealth Basics for Supportive Housing Providers and their Health Center Partners

• Telehealth for Supportive Housing Providers – Guidance for Providers Looking to Adapt and Consider Billing for Themselves

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This resource is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $450,000 with 0% of the total NCA project financed with non-governmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit HRSA.gov

This paper addresses how health centers, other health system providers, and housing partners can center considerations of equity in their shared work to address the needs of people most impacted by structural racism and its impact on health and social determinants of health, including Black people, people of color, and Indigenous people.

For suggestions on specific partnership structures and activities health and housing partners can conduct together, please see Addressing Health Equity Through Health and Housing Partnerships, released by CSH and the National Health Care for the Homeless Council in 2019.  

This resource is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $450,000 with 0% of the total NCA project financed with non-governmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit HRSA.gov.

Community responses to the COVID-19 pandemic like shelter-in-place, quarantine, testing, and management of strained health resources have elevated the necessity and value of effective health and housing partnerships to address the needs of vulnerable populations. This brief highlights strategies for health centers, housing, and community service providers in leveraging partnerships to address a range of health and housing needs both during, and after the COVID-19 crisis subsides.

While this guide was developed for a San Diego based audience, the guidance can be tailored to any community.

Through a collaboration between CSH and the Southern California Rental Housing Association (SoCalRHA), a helpful new resource is now available to guide new or returning renters through the often confusing and sometimes overwhelming process of leasing a home and remaining safely and stably housed for many years.  

The combination of quality housing and support services (supportive housing) provides the stability and support many people need to thrive. Available in both English and Spanish, Renting 101, A Guide to Successful Apartment Living provides tips, suggestions and recommendations intended to help anyone transition from a variety of circumstances to living in affordable/supportive housing.

The impetus for this guide was born out of a partnership between CSH and the County of San Diego Behavioral Health Services’ advisory Housing Council. As part of its annual work plan, the Housing Council prioritized enhancing informational and educational housing resource materials to help lower income and/or disabled residents and persons rehousing after experiencing homelessness with finding, leasing and then successfully retaining safe, healthy rental housing.

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Here is a sampling of quick tips you will find in this Renting 101 guide:

• Living in close proximity to others in an apartment setting often requires drawing on social skills, tolerance, and discipline to create a positive experience.
• Respect the rights of others.
• Keep your apartment clean.
• Establish communication and a good working relationship with the landlord or property manager.
• If you have questions about your lease, talk with your property manager.
• Be a good neighbor.

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A special thanks to SoCalRHA for their work on this guide, and their partnership in this educational effort.

About SoCalHRA & CSH

SoCalRHA is the leading trade association serving the rental housing industry in Southern California. The Association provides education and advocacy to individuals and companies who own, manage or provide services to the rental housing industry, and has been doing so for nearly 100 years. CSH has been working for nearly 30 years to advance solutions that use housing as a platform for services to improve the lives of the most vulnerable people, maximize public resources and build healthy communities. The two organizations are a natural to partner in developing a guide that helps build a healthy tenant-landlord relationship and teach others how to be successful renters.

A Renters Guide for Successful Apartment Living

This guide is for anyone who will be renting an apartment for the first time. The information here is intended to make the transition to this new lifestyle easier. In this guide book you will find helpful tips on apartment living like housekeeping issues, keys to a successful relationship with your landlord and other resources.

Esta guía también está disponible en español aquí.

Una Guía para la Vida en tu Apartamento

Esta guía es para cualquiera que este planeando alquilar un apartamento por primera vez. La información presentada busca simplificar la transición a este nuevo estilo de vida. En esta guía encontraras consejosútiles sobre la vida en un apartamento, como la limpieza, la clave para tener una buena relación con tu propietario y otros recursos.

This guide is also available in English, here.

From Perpetual Crisis to Thriving Inclusive Communities

Never in recent history has it been clearer our individual health and ability to thrive is inextricably linked to the overall health of our communities. For far too long people of color, persons experiencing homelessness, people living with disabilities, those with histories of involvement with the justice system and many others have been systematically ignored and marginalized. It is both heartbreaking and unsurprising that these same people are being disparately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

CSH board member, Roland Lamb, recently reminded me that we learned that lack of housing is a social determinant of illness, long before we learned that it was a social determinant of health. Today we are witnessing this in real time as COVID-19 spreads rapidly through institutions like nursing homes, shelters, veterans’ homes, mental health facilities, and group homes.

We already know people cycling through shelters, jails, emergency rooms, and other crisis settings incur enormous costs and poor outcomes. We also know that connecting such individuals with housing and supports can improve outcomes and ensure limited dollars are used effectively. Creating housing aligned with services at scale is critical to securing our public health infrastructure.

The looming question is; how do we get there? Today’s crisis presents an historic opportunity to transform all of our communities to places where everyone, particularly those with the greatest needs, have a real home and the support they need to thrive. Our goal must be to not only utilize the unprecedented funding coming as part of the COVID-19 response to implement short term solutions, but also to use it as a catalyst for long term solutions toward building inclusive communities that provide the housing, healthcare, food, employment, education, child care, outdoor space, and connection that we all need to be healthy and make meaningful progress in our lives.

A siloed approach to service delivery can no longer be the norm. Requiring individuals to run the gauntlet from shelter to emergency room to child welfare agency to food pantry to unemployment not only produces poor outcomes but wastes time and money. We must transform these systems to become more equitable, person centered, and collaborative.

While getting to the scale we need will call for a significant investment in resources, we also know that it will result in better outcomes, prevent future public health crises and generate new job opportunities in construction, human services, property management and beyond.

For the 1.1 million people currently inappropriately housed in institutions – we can do better.  We can treat the lack of housing as a public health issue.  And we can seize this opportunity to transform institutional care in our country.

Deb De Santis
President & CEO

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This is the first in a series of blogs from our President & CEO on how we move to long term solutions when the crisis abates.

The recent increase in federal funding to address the opioid crisis presents health centers the opportunity to expand partnerships with supportive housing and substance use disorder providers. Several states are implementing innovative practices and working with health centers and primary care providers to treat patients with opioid use disorders (OUD). This brief for health center partners summarizes promising practices in three states; explores a managed care organization’s work with its members to address the opioid epidemic; and ways for health centers to incorporate these practices into their OUD services.

Thursday April 2
1:00-1:30 PM ET

The supportive housing community, from providers to developers to policymakers, is stepping up to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Join CSH on Thursday, April 2 for the kickoff of a webinar series designed for anyone providing and housing and services in this crisis where we will:

• highlight what we have learned in the past week;
• provide examples of best practices from communities across the country; and
• discuss what information and resources the field needs.

The webinars will be 30 minutes. Initially scheduled as weekly for the next 10 weeks, the frequency may change to meet the needs of the industry. The content and focus of the webinar will evolve with the pandemic and the response to it.

Pascale Leone
Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Hurricane Katrina, Superstorm Sandy, SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Zika virus and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) taught us that we are all part of the same social fabric. No matter the continent, we all belong to each other and this earth. We are all connected; however, our inability to see our interconnectedness can lead to our collective downfall. While natural disasters and disease do not discriminate, we know that people can and do. These ‘equal opportunity’ calamities have a way of exposing our nation’s greatest weaknesses bare to the world: pervasive and dangerous inequities across race, class, gender identity and sexual orientation.  

While our inboxes of late have been flooded with rapid response efforts to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), what has been absent from dominant messages surrounding COVID-19 are the intersections of vulnerability and marginalization and how they can be exacerbated if insufficiently addressed.  Equity must take center-stage in all efforts to prevent the virus’ spread and effectively treat those who are ill.  

Vulnerable people are at great risk of not only acquiring and spreading the virus, but falling victim to discriminatory practices or being largely ignored. This includes people experiencing homelessness, older adults, individuals with compromised immune systems and/or behavioral health challenges, as well as historically marginalized groups including people of color, low-wage and hourly workers and their families, those who are detained or incarcerated and individuals with disabilities.  For those who wear more than one of those identities, the effects are compounding.

Racism and xenophobic hysteria showed up early in the pandemic crisis in the treatment of people of Chinese heritage. Class oppression soon followed during the coronavirus prevention and detection efforts through the unequal access to testing, illogical hoarding of goods and resources by those with means, and insensitive assumptions around having the ability to self-quarantine– like for people experiencing homelessness and housing instability, and whose jobs and livelihoods demand they continue to work.

All these “isms” are well known to supportive housing providers, who historically have served those on the margins and their ability to live their lives to their fullest potential despite the manifold obstacles faced.

Designing response efforts from the margins.  Thoughtful and inclusive leadership is needed now more than ever.  As more vulnerable populations fall ill or are placed at greater risk, tough decisions will need to be made. It is important that the supportive housing field respond with compassion and grace.  It is largely believed that we are at the beginning of this pandemic, so we have an opportunity to lead with equity.  

Opportunities for Supportive Housing Providers to Center Equity:

1. Apply an equity analysis to your current emergency protocols.  In uncertain times, think about the ways your leadership shows up. People of color make up a significant portion of our service and wage labor workforce, putting them (and their families) at acute risk. What is the composition of staff on the front lines and those able to work remotely? Is it equitable? When assessing risk of exposure to residents, understand who is disproportionately impacted. Many supportive housing tenants already face health and economic hardships in non-emergency times; this crisis leaves many of them even more vulnerable. What can be put in place to help mitigate some of those factors?
2. Empathy is a practice.  Check in on staff not only to learn what they are doing but how they are coping during this crisis. Continue to virtually connect and remind your peers that you’re all in this together. Assure employees that their health and economic security are a priority. If staff have concerns or questions about safety, or otherwise, clearly state who/how/where to express those concerns and ensure that they are heard.    
3. Words matter. Be conscious of the language you use to communicate with staff, residents and the broader community. We are all at risk of this highly contagious disease, but for some individuals, the impact will be more severe in terms of health and economic consequences.  Be vigilant to combat against language that stokes ungrounded fears and promotes “othering” and further marginalization. 
4. Be trauma-informed. Trauma-informed care is essential in times of crisis. For tenants and staff alike, many may be reliving symptoms of past trauma from recent and similar events, it is critical that information relayed is done in a trauma-informed way.  

This disease can leave a devastating impact on the most vulnerable among us, but so do the decisions we make in response to it.  Now is the time to prioritize the issue of equity. Remind yourselves and those around you that our collective fates are inextricably linked. Taking care of the last and least among us means taking care of ourselves.