DOH Funds Six Supportive Housing Pilot Projects

The Department of Health (DOH) Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) awarded over $26 million to launch six new pilot projects to test innovative supportive housing models of care. This new initiative is included within the State’s overall investment of more than $388 million over the past three years in supportive housing programs targeted at New York’s high-cost Medicaid members.

The six new pilot projects, many which were previously reported by LeadingAge NY, include:

Nursing Home to Independent Living Supportive Housing: $8,000,000

The Nursing Home to Independent Living Supportive Housing Pilot Program will service the needs of seniors and individuals with physical disabilities who require a nursing home level of care and who currently are homeless, residing in the community, in nursing homes or those who are at risk of nursing home placement. This pilot project will provide rental subsidies and support services to enrolled participants. The following providers are recipients of the nursing home to independent living supportive housing pilot initiative:

Salvation Army in Onondaga County ($4,000,000 for a two-year contract)
Federation of Organizations in Nassau and Suffolk Counties ($4,000,000 for a two-year contract)

Senior Supportive Housing Services: $4,500,000

The Senior Supportive Housing Services pilot program will provide supportive services and capital assistance funding to provide needed supports for low-income seniors throughout the State. These projects reflect the Department’s commitment to provide New York’s low-income, Medicaid eligible seniors’ assistance in maintaining affordable, accessible and sustainable housing and supportive services in the least restrictive setting. This pilot initiative is designed to assist low-income seniors with remaining housed in their current apartments for as long as possible.The following providers are recipients of the senior supportive housing services pilot initiative:

Goddard Riverside Community Center in NYC;
Westchester Independent Living in Westchester and Putnam Counties;
Family Services Society of Yonkers in Westchester;
Ithaca Housing Authority in Ithaca;
Rural Ulster Preserve (RUPCO) in Ulster County;
Promesa Systems in South Bronx;
Catholic Charities in Long Island;
United Helpers in St. Lawrence and Jefferson Counties; and
Project Renewal in Manhattan.

DOH will award each organization a maximum of $500,000 for a two-year contract period.

Supportive Housing Health Home Pilot Project: $4,000,000

The Medicaid Redesign Team Supportive Housing Health Home Pilot Project will provide rental subsidies and/or on-site or community based services to provide housing for homeless or unstably housed Medicaid members that are enrolled in New York State’s Health Home Program. Supportive Housing Providers will partner with of one or more designated New York State Health Homes to be the Provider’s partner in implementing the Pilot Program.

The goals of the Pilot Program is to identify best practices, procedures and methods for Supportive Housing Providers to collaborate with Health Homes to locate homeless or unstably housed Health Home members; provide housing as a means to facilitate access to health services and improve the health status of Health Home members; to coordinate effects of the Health Home Care Manager and Housing Specialist to implement the Health Home Member’s Plan of care. NYSDOH has awarded each of the following organizations a maximum amount of $400,000:

BronxWorks in the Bronx;
Housing Works, Inc. of Central Brooklyn;
Liberty Resources, Inc. in Cayuga, Madison, and Onondaga Counties;
Living Opportunities of DePaul in Niagara County;
Project Hospitality, Inc. of Staten Island;
The Bridge, Inc. in Manhattan;
The Fortune Society in New York City;
SI Behavioral Network, Inc. of Staten Island;
Southern Tier AIDS Program in Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Cortland, Delaware, Otsego, Tioga and Tompkins Counties; and
St. Catherine’s Center for Children serving the Capital District.

Homeless Senior and Disabled Placement Supportive Housing: $5,000,000

A one year appropriation of $5,000,000 in MRT funding will be provided to the NYC Department of Homeless Services to provide supported subsidized housing for difficult-to-place elderly disabled clients residing in the shelter system. The Homeless Senior and Disabled Housing program will identify New York City homeless shelter residents who are:

health home eligible;
recipients of Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits; and
eligible for nursing home care

The program will provide such eligible individuals rental subsidies and continuing case management services. In addition to the rental supplement, shelter residents who are health home eligible will receive housing retention services from the shelter that places them into permanent housing for one year.

Medicaid Redesign Team Supportive Housing Health Home HIV + Rental Assistance Pilot Project: $1,000,000

The Health Home HIV + Rental Assistance Pilot Project is a two-year pilot project in New York City that will provide up to one million dollars in funding annually for housing placement and rental assistance to extremely low income homeless health home participants who are diagnosed with HIV infection, but medically ineligible for the existing HIV-specific enhanced rental assistance program for New Yorkers with AIDS or advanced HIV-illness (AIDS Shelter Allowance).

The primary intent of this project is to demonstrate that providing homeless low income HIV positive people with stable housing, coupled with care coordination services (Health Home services) will result in improved health and reduced health care costs. Research has shown that low-income people with HIV/AIDS who receive housing assistance have better access to healthcare services, improved health outcomes, live longer and are less likely to transmit HIV infection to others.

Bronx AIDS Services will work in close collaboration with iHealth, a collaborative of community-based service organizations that provide an array of health and supportive services, including health home services, targeted to people living with HIV/AIDS. Through this collaboration, iHealth will assist with recruitment of eligible participants and the collection of data needed to assess the effectiveness of the project.

Medicaid Redesign Team Step-Down/Crisis Residence Capital Conversion: $4,000,000

The enriched crisis and transitional housing is a two-year pilot initiative that will help fill a critical gap in New York State’s service delivery system by providing recovery-based, person-centered alternatives to existing hospital-driven services. Services provided by the enriched crisis and transitional housing will include short-term respite care, clinical monitoring, connection or re-connection to other mental health services, and peer support.

Consistent with the goal of the pilot initiative, the services designed through these awards will help to improve transitions for individuals in crisis by reducing use of psychiatric emergency departments and hospitals, by diverting individuals in crisis from use of such services, and by providing a transitional step-down program following psychiatric hospitalization. Through this pilot initiative, providers will reconfigure and/or add spaces in existing residential programs to be able to provide 3 enriched units of crisis and transitional housing services. The pilot programs will allow for short-term level of intensive behavioral health respite care for individuals being discharged from psychiatric hospitals, who are not quite ready for a full transition into the community. This short-term respite care is often referred to as a “step-down program”; a method that is usually used to assist individuals who are experiencing increased apprehension about returning to the community from a psychiatric hospitalization. The goal of the step-down model is to strengthen an individual’s skills and abilities so they can better transition back to the community. The pilot initiative will also be available for those individuals already in the community who are experiencing a behavioral health crisis and could be diverted from incurring admission or readmission to inpatient care.

The anticipated outcomes of this pilot is to show that by addressing crisis and hospital diversion needs and by offering transitional step-down services to the highest cost Medicaid users, individual’s quality of care will be improved, costly hospital admission and readmissions will be reduced, immediate Medicaid savings will be generated, and strong evidence of the efficacy of such housing resources developed through this RFP will be validated.

The following providers are recipients of the enriched crisis and transitional housing services pilot initiative:

Central Region- Liberty Resources Inc.
Lower Hudson River Region- Occupations, Inc.
Upper Hudson River Region- Rehabilitation Support Services Inc.
Western Region- Lakeview Mental Health Services Inc.
Long Island Region (Nassau County) – Central Guidance and Counseling Services Inc.
Long Island Region (Suffolk County) – Concern for Independent Living Inc.
NYC Region (Kings County) – Services for the Underserved Inc.
NYC Region (Kings County) – OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services
NYC Region (Richmond County) – St. Joseph’s Medical Center St. Vincent’s Hospital Westchester Division, Department of Residential Services
NYC Region (New York County) – ACMH Inc.

Each provider has been awarded $249,000 annual operating funding for a period of two years and $84,333 in one-time capital funding.

Additional Pilots

The MRT Supportive Housing team is also working on the development of four additional pilot initiatives – the Special-Needs Assisted Living Program (SN-ALPS) pilot project, the Olmstead Subsidy program, MRT Access to Homes and the OMH Supported Housing Services Supplement – which will be launched shortly.

Contact: Ken Harris, kharris@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8383, ext. 139; Diane Darbyshire, ddarbyshire@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8828