New Contract Complements and Expands Nonprofit’s Work in District
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Shawn Flaherty, 703-554-3609
FAIRFAX, Va. (September 8, 2022) — Pathway Homes, a nonprofit providing mental health services—starting with safe, stable housing—to individuals marginalized by poverty and inequity, received a three-year contract with DC’s Department of Human Services to connect homeless adults with permanent housing and services.
“Helping more people find housing is important for stabilizing lives and communities. We look forward to using our expertise to ensure more unsheltered people get housing and services they need to reclaim their lives,” explained Pathway Homes CEO Sylisa Lambert-Woodard. “This new contract expands on the outreach work we started earlier this year in DC that helps people living on the streets get added to the city’s comprehensive, real-time list of people experiencing homelessness so they can qualify for services.”
In collaboration with the District’s Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, Pathways will serve homeless individuals and families throughout DC in areas where the greatest need is identified. Recognizing that this population is often transient, Pathway Homes will focus on broad outreach, location, and engagement of unsheltered or precariously housed individuals and families that meet the eligibility criteria for the city’s Permanent Supportive Housing program.
Case managers will be trained to screen and complete the digital forms and enter new individuals directly into the city and HUD’s databases to help them establish eligibility for subsidized units. Its licensed clinicians will help people complete assessments and provide diagnoses where needed. Case managers will also support individuals in applying for housing subsidies, connect them to landlords accepting these subsidies, and advocate on the participants’ behalf to remove or minimize potential housing barriers. The emphasis will be on finding housing that is accessible to local community amenities and public transportation as well as support services.
Once housed, Pathway will provide housing stabilization services to ensure continued success, including ongoing clinical assessments; education on medications and psychiatric illnesses; care coordination; skills training in money management, personal care and care of personal space, safety, interpersonal skills, computer and internet use, and transportation; training and support in adhering to terms of a lease or pursuing more independent housing; and more.
This contract complements work Pathways is already doing to help identify unsheltered people in DC. With a grant from Kaiser Permanente earlier in the year, Pathway Homes hired a trained outreach specialist that goes directly to where unsheltered individuals are living to help them sign up for the Homeless Management information System and navigate the process to help them quickly get matched to housing and services. Eligibility documentation is a real barrier for the chronically homeless to access services since they do not have a fixed address or other regular means of communication.
For more than 40 years, Pathway Homes has enabled tens of thousands of people in Northern Virginia with serious mental illnesses and other co-occurring disabilities to get housing and supportive services to help them recover their lives. Following the housing first model, Pathway Homes is a partner in preventing and ending homelessness, ensuring 1,553 people in 2021 had access to services and 505 permanent supportive housing units.
