Permanent supportive housing helps solve our country’s homelessness crisis by improving housing stability and reducing the use of public services. The permanent supportive housing approach is backed up by promising evidence, but it can face barriers to implementation because of a lack of political will and budgetary constraints. Some local governments are exploring a financing model called pay for success (PFS), which shifts the financial risk from traditional funders (typically a government) to alternative investors, such as foundations or banks. As of 2018, PFS had funded seven supportive housing interventions.

Related project page:
Getting the Most Out of Your Community’s Administrative Data

This brief was revised October 11, 2019. Box 3 on page 14 was changed to better explain the Denver SIB project and to correct and expand the list of data sources.