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What is Supportive Housing? |
Supportive housing is a proven, effective means of re-integrating people who have been marginalized back into their community by addressing their basic need for housing and providing on-going support for their special needs. Supportive housing is designed for low income working individuals or the formerly homeless with special needs such as mental illness, chemical dependency or chronic health challenges. Supportive housing is an alternative to more expensive and less effective institutional settings, and is a real solution to housing needs and homelessness because it addresses root causes.
Supportive housing has two major components:
- Affordable Housing - Safe, decent and secure rental housing that is
- affordable to people with very low incomes
- independent, with tenants living in their own apartments
- permanent, with occupancy extended as long as a tenant pays the rent and complies with the term of the lease
- Support Services - Support services are provided by staff trained in working with people who have been homeless or have special needs. The support services are
- flexible and responsive to the needs of the individual
- available as neededby the tenant
- accessible where the tenant lives
Supportive housing combines affordable housing with individualized health, support and employment services. Supportive housing looks like other types of rental housing because it is: people living in supportive housing have their own apartments, enter into rental agreements and pay their own rent.
The only real difference is that residents can access, at their option, support services designed to address their individual and special needs. Available services include access to a case manager, help in building independent living skills, and connections to community treatment and employment services - all intended to help each resident become an independent, self-sufficient, contributing member of the community.
