The History of Supportive Housing

• 2000 – A HISTORY OF SUPPORTIVE HOUSING IN NEW YORK CITY, Claire Haaga, Housing and Services, Inc. (HSI), New Plan Excel Realtry Trust – http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/2000/conversations/haaga_2000.htm

“……… For former alcoholics, drug users, or people with mental health problems, the experience of living in their own unit and worrying about furnishings and utilities may be an isolating experience. You don’t want to over-institutionalize people, but people who literally have been disconnected from society in many cases need an opportunity to reconnect with some support.  ……. We envisioned an SRO that would have a staffed front desk all the time, a manager on site, some social service staff, and links to services in the community. We didn’t want to duplicate mental health or other services, but we wanted to provide access to those services.“

• 2002 – WHAT IS SUPPORTIVE HOUSING? http://www.shnny.org/what_is_history.html (taken from Public Service Reductions Associated with Placement of Homeless Persons with Severe Mental Illness in Supportive Housing, Dennis Culhane, Stephen Metraux, and Trevor Hadley, Housing Policy Debate 2002.)

“ The field of supportive housing continues to mature: in recent years providers have created supportive housing for families, for youth aging out of foster care, for ex-offenders, even for grandparents raising grandchildren.. As it grows, supportive housing will continue to transform and enhance individual lives and communities throughout New York.“

• 2009 – Home & Healthy for Good, A Statewide Housing First Program, Progress Report, March 2009, Prepared by Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, www.mhsa.net, http://www.shnny.org/documents/HomeHealthyforGood-AStatewideHousing1stProgram_000.pdf

“Congregate housing, in which each tenant has a private bedroom and shares bathroom, kitchen, and laundry space with housemates, accounts for 58% of the housing in this program. The remaining 42% of homes are scattered-site housing (individual apartments scattered throughout neighborhoods).“

• 2009 –  Supportive Housing in Illinois: A Wise Investment, The Heartland Alliance, Mid-America Institute on Poverty, April 2009, http://www.shnny.org/documents/study-of-supportive-housing-in-illinois-final.pdf

“Permanent supportive housing: ……….. Takes many forms including individual scattered apartment units, entire apartment buildings of varying sizes, and single family homes.“

• 2008 – Supportive Housing and the DHCR:  2008 Unified Funding Round, August 2008, http://www.shnny.org/documents/SHNNYReportonDHCRUnifiedFunding2008.pdf

“In 2008, the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) funded the construction and preservation of more supportive housing than in any previous year. ………. In the first twenty months of the administrations of Governors Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson, State housing officials repeatedly expressed intentions to expand supportive housing development overall, and to integrate supportive housing units into more mainstream affordable housing projects.”

More to come …….