1. Keeping Families Together: Using Permanent Supportive Housing to Preserve and Strengthen High-Risk Families

2. Corporation for Supportive Housing
CSH is a national non-profit organization that helps communities create permanent housing with services to prevent and end homelessness.
Since 1991, CSH has been advancing its mission by providing advocacy, expertise, leadership, and financial resources to make it easier to create and operate supportive housing.

3. Keeping Families Together (KFT) Overview
Three-year pilot funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to determine whether of not permanent supportive housing can increase housing stability and reduce/prevent incidences of child neglect and abuse among chronically homeless families.
Quick overview of the pilot and then Our partners will talk about different aspects of the pilot, serving families in SH and some of the collaborative efforts that were critical to the pilot

4. Why Target Child Welfare-involved Families?
Research shows high prevalence of child welfare involvement among homeless families.
Family homelessness on the rise
NYC tragedy brings to light “systems failure” too big to ignore.
New supportive housing investment and production in NYC.
Case of Nixzmary Brown – Homeless and child welfare systems had repeatedly encountered family but unable to intervene led to continued abuse and neglect and child’s death
Confounding to most people b/c family was known to both the shelter system and the child welfare system but nieher system was able to servie the family effectively and prevent the death of the little girl
RWJF and CSH hypothesize that Permanent Supportive Housing could become a new strategy for preventing abuse and neglect among multi-system involved families

5. Primary Program Elements
Thirty units of Permanent Supportive Housing targeted to high need families at-risk of separation to foster care.
Full-scale evaluation measures both systems and family-level outcomes (housing stability, child welfare involvement and general family functioning).
Collaborative implementation effort brought together both government and nonprofit housing providers (6 housing providers and 5 government agencies).
Clinical training and consultation provided through a contract with Mt. Sinai School of Medicine to build capacity of housing providers to serve highest need families.
CSH brought together several New York City agencies, experts and nonprofit organizations experienced with providing supportive housing for families to design the KFT intervention collaboratively. With the Foundation’s backing, 30 units of permanent supportive housing were made available to homeless families at highest risk of having a child removed. CSH also worked to ensure

6. CSH/Keeping Families Together
Identifying Families Typically Out of Reach
DHS FAMILIES
1 of 2 years homeless or “at-risk”
ACS FAMILIES: Open & Indicated Case
ACS/DHS Child Advantage Match
Family Court
Children’s Attorneys
Parents’ Attorneys
DHS Shelters
CSH/Keeping Families Together
DHS
ACS Field Office,
ACS Contracted
Preventive Agencies
Court Unit
HRA Determines Eligibility
The KFT model turned the usual paradigm for prioritizing affordable housing on its head. Rather than targeting the most “stable” families, KFT sought out families with the most complicated cases and who were at greatest risk
Interagency collab very important coming from different places -- PSH was looked at as vehicle for serving those families who have been homeless the longest – in order to prioritize families through the lens of another system – child welfare – needed the working group to establish contacts and determine where families needed to be identified (shelter not enough – not good at identifying disabilities (nature of relationships) some shelters had perspective of “housing readiness” red tape often a deterrent to highest need families
KFT Housing providers interview eligible applicants
Families are placed in housing; program evaluator collects baseline data

7. KFT Family Characteristics
Based on interviews with 30 adults (29 families):
Typical KFT family is headed by a single mother of color in her mid-30s.
Majority of heads of households had not completed high school (69%) and only a very small percentage had been employed in the 3 years prior to the start of the pilot.
Substantial histories of past trauma including: parental drug or alcohol abuse; parental death or abandonment; sexual, physical, or verbal abuse; neglect; foster care, homelessness and chronic housing instability.
96% have a history of substance abuse. 54% had been diagnosed with mental illness.
50% of the minor children moved into the housing with their family; about a third were in foster care or an informal placement at that time.
80% (N=24) were found eligible for supportive housing due to a history of substance abuse and 10% were found eligible because of a history of severe/ persistent mental illness, or medical disabilities

8. Childhood Experiences of KFT Heads of Household
Intergenerational cycle of complex traumas, parental substance abuse and out of home placements

9. Service Utilization
Although chronically homeless adults have generally low levels of engagement in outpatient mental health services, substance abuse treatment and health care, many KFT families took advantage of the services available to them:

10. KFT Outcomes: Residential Stability
Nearly all (90%) KFT families remain housed, some for as long as 30 months.
The shelter histories of 15 DHS comparison families show a cumulative average shelter duration of 15.3 months, ranging from 2-30 months.
Seven families (46.7%) exited shelter after this initial stay. Eight families (53.3%) either remained in shelter without interruption or had episodes of one or two additional shelter stays during the period under study.  
Seeing very positive outcomes related the housing stability, child welfare involvement and children’s education
compared from before move-in to one year after move;

11. KFT Outcomes: Children’s Safety and Well-Being
62% of child welfare cases open at the time of housing placement were closed.
Four children who were in foster case reunified with their families over the course of the pilot.
The school-age children housed during the school year showed steady average increases in school attendance over three years, from before move-in to one year after move-in.

12. Keeping Families Together Partners

13. KFT Government Partners
Government agencies involved:
NYC Department of Homeless Services
Helped to identify and recruit eligible families; prioritized ACS –involvement among all those eligible for supportive housing; built awareness of project among family shelter providers and families.
NYC Housing Preservation and Development
Coordinated development timeline with recruitment efforts.
NYC Administration for Children’s Services
Helped to identify and recruit families; confirmed eligibility status; helped providers overcome bureaucratic obstacles related to their child welfare involvement (education, communication).
NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
Contract with KFT providers; provide technical assistance regarding NY/NY III implementation.
NYC Human Resources Administration
Clarified eligibility application process and eligibility criteria.
Working group met 25 times 2007 – 2010
focused on identification of referral criteria and recruitment of families
model development -- family challenges, building provider capacity to serve families
09-10 Larger Policy Issues – PA & Housing Retention & ACS status (missed appointments, etc.)
Looking at new models
Advocacy: building a housing/child welfare advocacy coalition :
Looking at underserved populations;

14. KFT Non-Profit Provider Partners
Provider Name
Units
Model
Location
CAMBA 2
Integrated
Brooklyn
LESC 10
Single-Site
Bronx
St. John’s LLP
The Lantern Group 6
Palladia, Inc. 4
Women-in-Need 5
Scattered-Site
Different perspectives
Give Background on providers
CAMBA Multi service provider
St John’s MH Housing Singles
Lantern – mixed housing developers – affordable/lighter service models
Palladia – substance use treatment; most experience serving families in supportive housing
WIN – Substance use and shelter
Refer to hand out for more details on provider history

15. Alison Harte Project Director, Keeping Families Together alison
Alison Harte Project Director, Keeping Families Together
Donna Tapper Rebecca Swann-Jackson