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The Supportive
Housing Providers Association (SHPA) is a statewide association of
non-profit organizations who provide supportive housing - affordable
housing, enriched with supportive services - to individuals and families
who are homeless and/or have special needs, such as mental illness,
substance abuse issues, or other chronic illness, such as HIV/AIDS.
SHPA was started in 1995 with assistance from the Corporation for
Supportive Housing. SHPA's members share the conviction, born out of
their own experience, that permanent supportive housing provides a
permanent, cost-effective solution to homelessness for the state's most
vulnerable citizens.
SHPA's mission is
to strengthen the supportive housing industry, to enable the increased
development of supportive housing, and to support non-profit
organizations to develop the capacity for providing permanent supportive
housing. We are dedicated to securing additional resources for
supportive housing and to streamlining the process of developing and
operating supportive housing. Members network with one another,
access the latest information, and advocate at the state and federal
levels, with the aid of Springfield lobbyists.
Overall Goal
Providers of
supportive housing now piece together many layers of capital, operating,
and services funding to finance supportive housing, a process that takes
up to three years for each project. After the housing is in place,
providers must weave together disparate systems of service to help each
resident in a holistic manner. Consequently,
SHPA’s goal is to change policy so that financing and service streams
are integrated and so that more resources are available for this
cost-effective lasting, solution to homelessness.
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