Flexible Housing Pool

The vision of the Flexible Housing Pool (FHP) is to create a cross-sector investment and innovative program delivery strategy to increase supportive housing resources in Chicago and Cook County for populations at the intersection of homelessness, complex physical and behavioral health needs, and criminal justice involvement. Diverse funding for the Flexible Housing Pool includes committed investments from city of Chicago, Cook County, Managed Care Organizations, hospital systems, Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives, private philanthropy, and grants from the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) and the State of Illinois.  

The Flexible Housing Pool’s oversight structure includes a Governance Council and workgroups. The Governance Council members include investors, key stakeholders, people with lived experience and CHH leadership. Workgroups within the FHP structure include Leadership, Racial Equity, Lived Experience Advisory Committee, Sustainability, Healthcare Engagement, and Evaluation. The FHP Governance Council holds accountability for program implementation, effectiveness, and long-term sustainability. The Governance Council identified the following Strategic Priorities for 2023-2024:

  • Improve outcomes for current participants
  • Reorient crisis system responses to prioritize racial equity
  • Enhance health care system coordination and participation
  • Accelerate capital development and growth of housing portfolio
  • Reinforce relationships with community partners 

Why Racial Equity?

Racism has long affected access to housing in Chicagoland.  The practice of redlining, for example, restricted residency and homeownership to certain areas of the city for Black, Brown, and poor Chicagoans, by reducing opportunities to obtain mortgage loans, earn home equity, or other community investments. Redlining in Chicago created a concentration of Black and Brown communities on the South and West sides, that furthered racial segregation in the city with wide-ranging impacts including racial disparities in education and employment opportunities.  These disparities, as well as biased practices in housing and lending, persist to this day.

As a result, homelessness disproportionately impacts Black and Latine Chicagoans.  According to the City of Chicago’s 2023 Point In Time Survey Report on people experiencing homelessness in the city, “[w]hile about one-third of Chicago’s total population is Non-Latino/a/x Black/African American, 69 percent of Non-Asylum Seekers experiencing homelessness are Black/African American.”

Flexible Housing Pool clients are representative of the city’s population of people experiencing homelessness, not including asylum seekers.  Our client demographics mirror the city’s statistics.  Please compare the City of Chicago’s report with our annual report.

Values and Goals

Core values imbedded within the FHP program model are racial equity, housing first, authentic lived experience collaboration, and positive youth development; and the FHP’s housing service delivery model integrates philosophies of care which include of harm reduction, trauma-informed care, client-centered services, and the Stages of Change model.  The FHP’s three primary goals are to:  

  1. Design more effective methods for connecting individuals who are frequently using crisis systems – such as emergency rooms, shelters or jail – to permanent supportive housing;  
  2. Increase the amount of supportive housing;  
  3. Reduce the length of time to housing for FHP participants by allowing greater flexibility in unit identification and participant placement.  

FHP Program Overview & Metrics 

The FHP’s program design builds upon permanent supportive housing evidence-based practices with enhancements to program services not typically funded or allowed by traditional public funding sources. Services provided to all tenants within the FHP program include: 

  • Referral and outreach 
  • Landlord engagement 
  • Housing navigation and placement 
  • Case management/tenancy supports & housing stabilization
  • Rental subsidies to private market landlords 
  • Client Assistance Fund 
  • Landlord Mitigation Fund 

Additional supportive services offered to tenants are: 

  • Care coordination 
  • Workforce development and employment services 
  • Behavioral health services and supports 
  • Family and child support services 
  • Peer support & Tenant Workshops 

The FHP’s Key Performance Measures include: 

  • 90% of Tenants maintain housing stability at 12 months 
  • 80% of Tenants have an income through employment and/or eligible public benefits 
  • 90% of Tenants have medical insurance and are connected to primary care 
  • 20% of Tenants are connected to mainstream affordable housing/subsidies opportunities 

Expansion and Expectations of FHP Supportive Housing Partners 

The Center for Housing and Health implements programming using a collaborative partnership model. Selected organizations will work with CHH and the FHP partnership to deliver the highest-quality housing, programming, and services to FHP tenants. The partnership allows for CHH and the organizations to support each other, share resources, and expand expertise with the goal of ending the cycle of homelessness and unnecessary utilization of crisis systems.    

The Center for Housing and Health is seeking 501(3)c non-profit community-based organizations based in the city of Chicago with capacity to provide supportive housing case management/tenancy supports to FHP tenants. CHH will subcontract with the selected organizations to hire and retain competent, compassionate staff to provide trauma-informed and client-centered services. Hiring people with lived experience is highly encouraged.    

FHP’s tenant subpopulations include people experiencing homelessness and living with chronic illnesses, behavioral health challenges, substance use, justice-involved backgrounds, youths (18-24 years old) impacted by violence in their community, individuals living in public spaces, and/or residents returning to their communities upon leaving Illinois Department of Corrections facilities.   

2023-24 program expansion opportunities include: 

  • Increasing housing opportunities to improve health outcomes for individuals and families living in Chicago’s southside neighborhoods 
  • Increasing housing opportunities for youths (18-24 years old) impacted by violence in partnership with the city’s Service Coordination and Navigation (SCaN) program 
  • Increasing housing opportunities for people living in unsheltered spaces 

Selected organizations will hire direct service staff to provide intensive case management/tenancy supports to a caseload of 20 individual clients or 15 families. Services and supports to be provided by case managers include, but are not limited to: 

  • Conducting intake assessments for assigned clients and reassessments at six-month intervals  
  • Developing service plans; Setting and monitoring goals which are tenant-driven 
  • Conducting at least monthly home visits 
  • Providing and managing referrals and resources to meet tenants’ basic needs, as well as psycho-social needs 
  • Ensuring tenants are connecting to their community and social supports 
  • Providing education to build tenancy skills to maintain housing stability 
  • Ensuring tenants obtain and/or maintain a source of income through eligible benefits or employment 
  • Ensuring tenants have insurance and are connected to primary care and other health-related services, as needed 
  • Coordinating the purchase of furniture, basic home items, and hygiene items upon move-in 

  As the FHP Program Administrator, CHH will provide: 

  • Oversight and coordination of the FHP program to ensure all partners are delivering quality standardized services to tenants 
  • Funding for: 
    • Case management salary at no more than $50,000 plus fringe per position
    • Supervisory staff funding at no more than $10,000 per FHP Staff FTE 
    • Start-up operating costs: at no more than $10,000 
    • Assistance Fund: $15,000 per caseload 
    • Administrative fee: at no more than 15% 
  • FHP Policies & Procedures; onboarding and on-going training for staff and supervisors 
  • Database (CaseWorthy) system access, database training, and on-going technical assistance 
  • Landlord engagement services and a housing portfolio accessible to partners 
  • Support with identifying and sharing community resources to enhance tenant outcomes 

The FHP Partner Agency will: 

  • Hire, train and provide ongoing supervision to direct service staff 
  • Provide services with the lens of racial equity, trauma-informed care, housing first and harm reduction 
  • Participate in monthly System Integration Team (SIT) Meetings and Partner Supervisor meetings to ensure program services are being delivered in accordance with FHP Policies and Procedures to equitably address tenant needs 
  • Ensure timely and accurate program data entry
  • Participate in the 24-hour FHP Crisis Line rotation
  • Attend required trainings to continuously improve program and service delivery quality 
  • Provide timely vouchers for reimbursement