Supportive Housing

Recommendation Recovery #1: 
Increase availability of supportive housing for people with behavioral health conditions.

Sponsored by:

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Project Information

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The IBHC Supportive Housing Team originally had three action items: 

1) Provide permanent, affordable, and quality supportive housing options to increase safety for civilly committed individuals upon community reentry – In addition to evaluating the process and outcomes of individuals experiencing homelessness when they exit the state hospital, this action team adapted the SMART goals of the original HART home action team to analyze the impact of homelessness on state hospital admissions, this work is currently in progress. The team will also evaluate other options for reentry programs that offer supportive housing as a cost containment strategy and improve community safety; the work is just getting started.

 2)  Provide permanent, affordable, and quality supportive housing options to increase safety for justice-involved individuals upon community reentry – This action team’s work is based on a Zero Returns for Homelessness grant received by the Idaho Department of Correction and supported by a collaboration of entities addressing homelessness, including IHFA/House Idaho Collaborative and City of Boise/Our Path Home.  Although the grant has since been eliminated, the action team is continuing its work.  Their first objective is to facilitate cross-agency data sharing to identify individuals with the most significant housing needs. IHFA had previously arranged for Boise State University to conduct the analysis, and the work is currently in progress. The team is also evaluating other reentry programs that offer supportive housing in different states to develop a case study between options that may achieve cost savings.

3) Conduct targeted education on the need and cost savings associated with providing evidence-based supportive housing options for individuals upon community reentry.  After developing the scopes of work for the action items related to justice-involved individuals and individuals exiting the state hospitals, they recognized similar goals for educating key community stakeholders, policymakers, and property managers. To prevent duplication of efforts, the related objectives were moved to a new action item.  We are still recruiting members for this action team. However, the action item includes objectives of 1) Increase priority stakeholder (state agencies, public and private insurers, public safety officials, reentry and homelessness service providers) knowledge about evidence-based supportive housing programs that, when utilized as reentry strategies, deliver positive client and system outcomes, including cost savings; 2) Educate state lawmakers about opportunities for state cost savings via reentry programs focused on supportive housing, potential funding sources, and implementation options in Idaho, and 3)  Educate housing providers on how supportive housing programs benefit the community and their business operations.

Expand supportive housing options, including HART homes – This action item was closed after preliminary work. The action team members realized that the target populations releasing from incarceration and the state hospitals are not compatible with the restrictive settings of HART homes. The state recently increased the number of HART homes, so there is no need to invest in additional HART homes at this time. Instead, there needs to be an increased supply of step-down, less-restrictive levels of supportive housing to facilitate safe community reentry. The action team members created SMART goals to collect data about these populations to justify that investment. These SMART goals were folded into the other two action items.