Supportive housing (also known as Permanent Supportive Housing or “PSH”) is a combination of housing and services intended as a cost-effective way to help people live more stable, productive lives. PSH typically targets people who are homeless or otherwise unstably housed, experience multiple barriers to housing, and are unable to maintain housing stability without supportive services.

PSH is part of the “Housing First” approach based on the concept that a homeless individual or household’s first and primary need is to obtain stable housing, and that other issues that may affect the household can and should be addressed once housing is obtained. In contrast, many other programs operate from a model of “housing readiness” — that is, that an individual or household must address other issues that may have led to the episode of homelessness prior to entering housing.

Housing First is currently endorsed by the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) as a “best practice” for governments and service-agencies to use in their fight to end chronic homelessness in America.

In Los Angeles, residents passed Proposition HHH, a $1.2 billion bond to more than triple L.A.’s annual production of supportive housing and help build approximately 10,000 units for homeless Angelenos across the city. Since 2016, L.A. has put more than 8,000 units of supportive housing in the construction pipeline. That’s more in three years than was built in the previous 30.