Policy Brief: Aligning Social Practice and Supportive Housing for Community-Centered Housing

Supportive housing is a proven approach to breaking the cycle of homelessness for people with serious mental illness and other disabilities. Supportive housing is a cost-effective approach that combines affordable housing with voluntary support services, enabling people to live with stability, autonomy, and dignity. While supportive housing is an effective approach for addressing homelessness, residents also need social support to live healthy lives and address loneliness, isolation, and barriers to maintaining their mental health.

Fountain House and CSH are exploring Community-Centered Housing (CCH), an innovative approach that integrates the clubhouse model’s social practice into supportive housing. Pioneered by Fountain House, social practice uses community engagement and social connection to help people recover from mental illness.

This policy brief illuminates early research findings from pilot programs, showing that Community-Centered Housing strengthens social connections, reduces loneliness, and enhances residents’ sense of purpose and wellbeing. To forge a path forward for expanding CCH, the brief recommends bringing the model to additional pilot sites, conducting rigorous evaluation, expanding workforce training, and educating the field about social practice and supportive housing integration.

This approach offers a chance to reimagine what housing can achieve. By embracing this model, we can drive meaningful transformation in the housing sector and create environments that support people living with serious mental illness and promote lasting recovery and stability.