Blog: Homelessness Ends Here

With the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Corporation for Supportive Housing has developed the Keeping Families Together pilot in New York City to demonstrate the impact of supportive housing on families who are chronically homeless and child welfare-involved.  This model pairs supportive housing with preventive child welfare services, with the goal of stabilizing families in crisis and improving family functioning. CSH has commissioned an evaluation to describe the process of implementation at both the systems and service level. The following update provides specific examples of how the KFT initiative is helping to create thriving and stable families. Additional background about this initiative is available here.

With the holiday season upon us, it’s easy to let stress and family friction overshadow the gift of togetherness, and to take for granted our ability to share in one another’s company.  This year, my own sense of gratitude is renewed as I am reminded of the importance of this gift by a family whose story I came to hear about through one of our initiatives in New York City.

'Linda’ and ‘Arthur’ are a couple in New York City who have shared many things during their eight years together, including two children and the challenges of living with schizophrenia.  For a time, they shared an apartment paid for with their Supplemental Security Income, until their SSI allowance was decreased and their rent increased.  When the money ran out, they ended up back on the street and like many other families experiencing homelessness, they found it easier to live apart—Linda in a women’s shelter and Arthur with his mother.  They had lost custody of their older child years ago, and were actively but hopelessly seeking to reunify with their 8-month old daughter, ‘Amy,’ who had been placed into foster care soon after birth because of her parents’ psychiatric diagnoses.  

Linda and Arthur had lost custody of their older child years ago, and were actively but hopelessly seeking to reunify with their 8-month old daughter, who had been placed into foster care soon after birth because of her parents’ psychiatric diagnoses.

This is the desperate situation in which Linda and Arthur found themselves when they first encountered an organization participating in the Corporation for Supportive Housing’s (CSH) Keeping Families Together (KFT) Demonstration Initiative. 

KFT was launched by CSH in 2007 at the urging of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which had been closely tracking several high-profile child welfare cases in the news.  Sadly, the headlines told how children had died from abuse and neglect while living with families who had experienced many challenges, including recurring bouts of homelessness.  The question was posed to CSH: Could permanent housing, infused with family preservation services, help families experiencing homelessness, behavioral health problems, and involvement in the child welfare system to remain together, avoid such tragedies, and ultimately become thriving and stable families?

CSH called together several New York City agencies, experts, and several non-profit organizations experienced with providing supportive housing to families, and collaboratively designed the KFT intervention.  With the backing of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, thirty units of permanent supportive housing were made available to homeless families who were at the highest risk of having a child removed from the home.  CSH also worked to ensure that the City agencies would help overcome the bureaucratic hurdles that can arise when serving highly vulnerable families known to multiple public support systems.

In addition to making these units available and linking them with services focused on family stability and preservation, KFT turned the usual prioritization paradigm for affordable housing on its head.  Rather than targeting the most “stable” families, KFT seeks out families with the most complicated cases and who are most at risk. Without this paradigm shift, it is more than likely that Linda and Arthur would not have been able to enter permanent supportive housing and exit homelessness.  Now, thanks to KFT, Linda and Arthur have a permanent place to call home, receive the services that support their recovery from their illnesses, and have regained custody of their daughter.  They recently celebrated Amy’s second birthday in their own home, surrounded by their neighbors and supportive housing staff.  

Could permanent supportive housing help families experiencing homelessness, behavioral health problems, and involvement in the child welfare system remain together, avoid such tragedies, and ultimately become thriving and stable families?

Recent evidence indicates that Linda and Arthur’s story is far more prevalent than most of us realized or wished were the case.  The latest issue of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, edited by Ellen Bassuk and Kristen Paquette of the National Center on Family Homelessness, pulls together recent research that shows the inter-connections between homelessness, child neglect and abuse, child welfare system involvement, family separation, and the impact of homelessness on future generations.  In this issue, Cheryl Zlotnick’s article, “What Research Tells Us about the Intersecting Streams of Homelessness and Foster Care,” cites a study of foster care in a northern California county in which nearly 50% of randomly selected children in foster care had been removed from homeless parents.  Homelessness among families may not be just one factor contributing to the separation of children from parents and the entry of children into the foster care system; it may in fact be the biggest and most important cause of their separation.

Families like Linda and Arthur’s—facing homelessness, behavioral health challenges, deeply entrenched poverty, and multiple encounters with the child welfare system—consume the attention and test the fortitude of child protective services workers, shelter staff, mental health clinicians, and many others.  For these workers, the temptation to give up hope and leave the fates of these families to the courts and institutions is often great.  This is why KFT’s family preservation supportive housing is such a critical innovation.

Through an evaluation, we confirmed that we’re reaching the most vulnerable families.  All of the families were homeless, headed by persons with behavioral health issues, and have had repeated contacts with the child welfare system.  The twenty-nine families interviewed at baseline report having birthed 105 children, of which 62% had been in foster care at some point, and 19% have been in an informal placement out of home.  Only 43 of the 105 (41%) children were actually living with the families upon their entry into supportive housing.

More than a year later, we’re seeing some incredible results: 92% of the families placed into KFT’s various supportive housing sites remain housed today.  More importantly, whereas 100% of the families had active and open child protection cases at move-in, after obtaining supportive housing, no new cases have been opened, three cases have been closed, and four children have actually been reunified with their parents.  Many of the KFT families are taking further steps toward improving their lives. Two parents have completed substance abuse treatment, and three have secured employment.  Several have obtained needed medical, psychiatric, or dental care.  Several children are doing well in school and others have obtained supports to strengthen their academic performance.  All of the families report having a stronger social network.

Most importantly, thirty families, including Linda and Arthur, have the special gift of being able to celebrate the holidays this year as a family.  Their story is an important reminder that being together with family is indeed a gift; one for which I should take the time to be grateful. 

Richard Cho is director of the Corporation for Supportive Housing's Innovations and Research Unit. Richard has been with CSH over eight years and has been "innovating" the entire time, from figuring out how supportive housing can benefit those re-entering communities from the criminal justice system to designing programs to serve a multitude of populations.