Building the Foundation: Lessons from Developing Permanent Supportive Housing Systems
I’ve had the great privilege in my career of stepping into a mature Permanent Supportive Housing ecosystem, where on a local and regional level multiple nonprofit and government agencies over time established effective infrastructure for developing PSH multifamily assets year after year. Over two decades, the outcomes were dramatic -more than 1,000 PSH developed, a retention rate of approximately 96%, approximately 20% positive turnover, and a documented reduction on the use of safety net supports, resulting in the diversion of tax dollars devoted to these supports to other uses because they had become surplus. https://www.enterprisecommunity.org/blog/housing-first-ohio
Since moving to a community where PSH is just getting started, I have seen the first baby steps, the early, steep learning curve, and the frustrations of lessons delivered in real time.
The rubric goes that for PSH to work as intended, the platform must function as a seat on three legs. These are: a developer with sufficient experience and balance sheet to pursue, secure and implement capital financing; a property manager with a depth of both understanding in the various and often extreme needs of the population and the bench to support successful management across multiple PSH developments; and a lead service provider who can aggregate the specialties of fellow service providers and government agencies in the community to deliver a full spectrum of services on location. But when a local PSH infrastructure is at its launch point, the necessary layers of experience across the three legs of the stool may not be present. The biggest mistake local, regional or state government can make in this case is to look for immediate success, not find this, and conclude that PSH will not work for their community. It takes years to establish and years to develop the localized data that can educate even the staunchest critics. Let’s discuss your community’s need for PSH and how to implement it in a strategic, meaningful way!
https://www.csh.org/#
