Corporation for Supportive Housing

Sherri Neasham, Lead Partner

“Supportive housing enables the homeless with disabling conditions to live independently and is the most effective strategy to end long-term homelessness. With the help of San Diego Social Venture Partners, CSH has been able to clearly identify critical success factors to ensure the creation of new housing for the homeless in our region and not let precious resources go unspent.”

Simonne Ruff, Director

With over $100 million available to the San Diego region to develop housing for homeless people with disabling health conditions, the Corporation for Supportive Housing’s challenge in 2007-08 was to ensure that this money would not be returned to the State for yet another year. Working with San Diego Social Venture Partners, it became clear that the most important strategy to use (and not lose) this money would be to create a mandate requiring developers to build supportive housing.

The Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC) took up this challenge to end homelessness in downtown San Diego. CCDC has mandated that supportive housing be included in projects in the downtown area, creating 95 new units in the coming years.

The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) is celebrating last year’s achievements as they pursue their newly defined mission to be a catalyst in the development of quality permanent supportive housing. CSH’s vision is to promote the creation of 2,000 units of supportive housing over the next 10 years to end long-term homelessness in San Diego. Over the next three years, CSH will enable 250 homeless individuals with disabling health conditions to leave the streets and remain housed for one year.