County Housing Program Wins National Award

This program seems to take a slightly different approach than what we have locally or the national approaches I hear about.

Most housing programs subscribe to a housing first model that provides housing first, and then focuses on addressing problems like addiction or mental illness. This has the advantage of assuring housing, but may lower expectations and leverage to promote change. The other approach (like our transitional housing) might be called sobriety contingent housing. These programs have the advantage of setting high expectations but people generally return to homelessness if they relapse. This program seems to provide treatment contingent housing. It would be interesting to see how many people a program like this can move into recovery. I suppose the questions is whether it draws the best from both or just lowers the bar and overemphasizes the role of treatment in recovery.