Housing for the Mentally Ill Homeless: Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
Date Published: March 7, 2006
In American society today, the homeless street person is the most emblematic symbol of the poor and disabled who have been left behind by the nation's prosperity. To address the needs of this population, over the past 12 years the Foundation has granted $20 million to the Corporation for Supportive Housing (“CSH”).
Although several million people each year experience short periods of homelessness, there is a smaller population of 150,000 to 200,000 people who are chronically homeless, many suffering from severe and persistent mental illness. Over the past two decades, nonprofit housing and service providers have demonstrated success in helping many of these individuals to enter treatment and move into permanent housing. However, there remain the profoundly disabled single homeless adults who have become long-term residents of emergency shelters or have lived on the streets for years. This population is resistant to treatment and uses a disproportionate share of emergency services.
Recently the Foundation awarded $8 million to CSH to support its Ending Homelessness for People with Mental Illness in Los Angeles Initiative. This new effort has two overarching purposes: providing services linked to housing for mentally ill homeless people in Los Angeles County and advancing systems change that integrates the flow of public and private funding to deliver comprehensive services.
The Foundation additionally awarded CSH $1.75 million to support its provision of technical assistance to public and non-profit agencies across the country seeking to develop supportive housing for the mentally ill homeless. The Hilton Foundation has taken a lead role in galvanizing a national partnership to end long-term homelessness that includes the Rockefeller, Robert Wood Johnson and Fannie Mae Foundations, Melville Charitable Trust, Fannie Mae Corporation and Deutsche Bank. The partnership has generated more than $30 million to advance the work of its implementing partners: CSH and the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Current Hilton Foundation support builds on earlier grants to CSH for work initially done in New York City and subsequently in six major metropolitan areas including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio. These initiatives helped to develop and expand innovative and cost effective programs to stabilize street homeless, long-term emergency shelter residents and other mentally ill homeless people.
