Corporation for Supportive Housing

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 ping-ponging 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.  

Under this grant, CSH will collaborate with the Association for Community Living—a statewide membership organization of nonprofits that provide housing and rehabilitation to people with mental illness—to launch the Healthy Aging in Supportive Housing project. CSH will convene quarterly online forums for New York supportive housing and social service agencies to identify common challenges and share strategies. It will implement a training series to educate supportive housing providers about the needs of older adults and how to design and implement care models. CSH will expand its current technical assistance and increase capacity-building, which will be customized to each organization and designed to help providers embed new practices. In addition, CSH will develop and share a toolkit with a guide for supportive housing providers to implement and sustain new services. It will make recommendations for State and local policy changes and investments to redesign services and build infrastructure for older adults. Impact will be evaluated by tracking quantitative and qualitative metrics including supportive housing provider knowledge of new service models and resident feedback on experiences.