Healthy Aging in Supportive Housing Initiative

Grantee Name

Corporation for Supportive Housing

Funding Area

Special Projects Fund

Publication Date

February 2026

Grant Amount

$150,000

Grant Date:

June 2023

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More than 90,000 homeless individuals live in New York State; many of them have experienced housing instability for a year or more. People who are chronically homeless have disproportionately high rates of serious mental illness, substance use disorders, and chronic medical problems because of the barriers they experience in getting high-quality preventive care. Supportive housing is an evidence-based solution; residents are linked to intensive case management and services like health care and workforce development. New York’s supportive housing providers report that more than 60% of residents are older than age 50 and live with two or more chronic illnesses. And approximately 25,000 chronically ill residents with a behavioral health or substance use disorder are age 50 or older. The complexity of their needs makes it challenging to coordinate care, and many older residents end up shifting between providers without a consistent source of care. In 2023, NYHealth awarded the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) a grant to help New York’s supportive housing providers adapt their services to meet the needs of an aging population, with a focus on people with behavioral health needs.

Outcomes and Lessons Learned

Developed Meeting the Needs of Older Tenants: A Practical Guide for Supportive Housing Providers, a 45-page, practice-oriented toolkit informed by older adults, frontline staff, and key stakeholders. The toolkit equips providers with actionable guidance on aging-related health and cognitive changes, service coordination, staffing models, and sample policies to support aging safely and with dignity in place.
Showcased the toolkit and policy agenda at a joint webinar with the Association for Community Living and are working with CSH’s Aging Lead and others to create a universal version of the toolkit that can be shared with providers all over the country. They held a series of webinars on the toolkit in California as well as the Southwest and Midwest regions.
Convened quarterly Healthy Aging Forums and delivered a multi-session training series reaching nearly 400 participants. Strong attendance and repeated requests for continuation underscored the growing demand for age-friendly training in the supportive housing sector and validated the project’s approach.

CSH leveraged the Foundation’s investment to expand dissemination of the toolkit statewide and nationally. Their innovative project helps advance a policy agenda focused on improving housing and service systems for older New Yorkers, including increased production and preservation of affordable senior housing, adjustments to service and operating funding to reflect rising costs and service intensity, and strategies to better align funding across supportive housing programs.

Co-Funding and Additional Funds Leveraged: Helmsley Charitable Trust ($3,000,000), Bank of America Foundation ($20,000)

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