Supportive housing is not a solo act. It brings together three very different disciplines – housing development, supportive services, and property management – and therefore often requires a collaboration between two or more lead organizations, as well as coordination with tenant representatives and other parties. As resources and funding become more limited, collaborative relationships are becoming the most efficient way to match agency talents and the diverse needs of supportive housing tenants.
The lead organizations in these partnerships, unlike music combos, don’t get any rehearsal time or conductor leadership. The result, too often, is a series of “predictable crises,” listed here in Chapter Five. 

This supportive housing manual is a how-to workbook for successful collaborations and a prevention guide for predictable crises. It aims to show you how to save time, money, and hair-pulling by picking the right type of collaboration early in the process and by talking often. 

The manual also shares some legal and operating models, and some lessons about what seems to work. The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) funnels technical assistance, funding and investment capital to the nonprofit organizations who form these collaborative relationships in eight localities around the country. Successful collaboratives are essential to our shared mission: to expand the quantity and quality of service-supported permanent housing for tenants with special needs who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

Suggested users of this manual are:

• Staff and board members of nonprofit development and service agencies who are thinking about developing and operating supportive housing 
• Potential development and operating team members such as development consultants and property managers 
• Tenant advocates and tenant leaders 
• Government agencies, lenders, and funders 

While this manual will provide some guidelines on how to bring these various players together, it will not teach you how to develop supportive housing, how to design and deliver an array of services, how to fund services and housing, or how to manage the building after it’s built.