Letter from CSH President & CEO
Dear Colleague:
I am pleased to provide CSH’s guide to creating supportive housing for child welfare-involved families. The guide is based on lessons learned from our Keeping Families Together pilot program, and related efforts to help communities knit together local, state and federal resources to develop similar initiatives.
CSH’s Keeping Families Together started as a 3-year pilot designed to address the needs of New York City’s vulnerable families. The initiative yielded such impressive results that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children Youth and Families (ACYF), and four private foundations made an unprecedented investment to fund parallel supportive housing demonstration projects around the country.
This monumental support and funding opportunity allows ACYF to test the impact of supportive housing for child welfare-involved families on a large scale. We are optimistic that the results will provide resounding evidence that supportive housing is an effective tool for improving child and family well-being, while reducing unnecessary family separation and foster care among vulnerable families experiencing homelessness.
Together with our partners, we believe we can create a new policy response for at-risk families that includes supportive housing. We hope to help communities achieve this vision and we believe this guidebook is a solid step forward.
In addition to the guidebook, CSH and the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) have created the Child Welfare and Supportive Housing Resource Center to support the federal initiative and the growing number of communities looking for solutions to serve their most high-need families. The Resource Center provides a wide range of expertise, information and tools, encouraging and promoting peer-learning opportunities while building on existing local capacity and the experience of those working in the field.
We are deeply indebted to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for its initial investment in our Keeping Families Together pilot as well as its continued support for the collection and wide distribution of information that further demonstrates supportive housing as a solution for families.
We welcome your participation as well and are eager for your feedback.
I look forward to working with you and others to model supportive housing for a new and invaluable purpose—giving kids the chance to live healthier more productive lives as members of stable and nurturing families.
If you have any questions, please email info@csh.org.
We are happy to assist.
Sincerely,
Deborah De Santis
President and CEO
Additional Information and Technical Assistance
For technical assistance, please contact your local CSH field office. If there is not a CSH office near you, please contact our national Government Affairs and Innovation team at childwelfare@csh.org.
For information on national policy efforts related child welfare involved families, please email us at info@csh.org.
