Report: HHS, HUD Should Increase Supportive Housing for Homeless

The departments of Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development should work with state and local governments and other concerned entities to increase the supply of permanent supportive housing – stable housing combined with supportive services such as health care – for chronically homeless individuals, according to a report released today by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report also calls for more research on the health benefits and cost-effectiveness of permanent supportive housing. “Housing is an important determinant for health in general, and we believe that stable housing has an especially important impact on the ability to care for certain conditions and on the health of people who have them,” said Kenneth Kizer, director of the Institute for Population Health Improvement at the University of California, Davis and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “More and better research is needed to help identify those housing-sensitive conditions.”