Housing That Heals
A National Initiative to Meet the Needs of the Untreated and Unhoused
Unfortunately, in many communities across the country, too few places exist for those who are untreated and unhoused. This is the result of the failure of three federal policies: The Continuum of Care Program addressing homelessness, federal policies addressing mental illness, and federal policies addressing addiction treatment.
The federal Housing First policy is simply not meeting the needs of those experiencing mental illnesses and/or addictions who are living on the street. More funding than ever has lead to more housing than ever, and, yet, unsheltered homelessness is growing in size and severity. We need to stop substituting housing for clinical interventions to treat mental illness and addiction.
Federal policy also discourages the creation of psychiatric beds and residential settings. Existing facilities are too often carceral, crisis oriented, and inhospitable. It is simply too hard to get treatment and too easy to deteriorate on the streets.
Hope Street Coalition’s Housing That Heals Initiative seeks to integrate housing, treatment, and clinical services. It seeks to produce recovery, dignity, community, and hospitality for people experiencing serious mental illness and/or addiction. It seeks to change federal and state policy to provide treatment before tragedy. In short, Housing That Heals aims to make is easy to get treatment.
Housing That Heals will end street suffering, end 'fail-first' incarceration for mental illness, and bring people home to health, hope, and healing.
Hope Street Coalition is engaging with policy makers to advance the Housing That Heals Initiative. Our goal is to create more places for the unhoused and untreated and more access to treatment and clinical services to keep people off the streets, stabilize their lives, and improve their health.
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