Frequently Asked Questions

Permanent supportive housing (PSH) is long-term rent assistance or long-term leasing with supportive services for people to exit homelessness and be stable in housing.

A resident has access to supportive services including food access, health education and employment services, benefits assistance, physical and behavioral health services, and peer support activities.

Yes, once a person moves into supportive housing, their rental payment is calculated at 30% of their monthly income. 

Yes, and supportive housing is successful. From 2023 to 2024, in San Francisco, fewer than 2% of PSH residents were evicted from their housing, meaning the vast majority stay housed and have ended their homelessness.

Operating a PSH unit costs on average under $100 per unit, per day. By comparison, an emergency shelter bed totals $126 per day.

No, supportive housing is a national best practice.

No, San Francisco has been providing Permanent Supportive Housing since the mid-1990’s.

Per the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH): “Housing First is a homeless assistance approach that prioritizes providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, thus ending their homelessness and serving as a platform from which they can pursue personal goals and improve their quality of life. This approach is guided by the belief that people need basic necessities like food and a place to live before attending to anything less critical, such as getting a job, budgeting properly, or attending to substance use issues. Additionally, Housing First is based on the understanding that client choice is valuable in housing selection and supportive service participation, and that exercising that choice is likely to make a client more successful in remaining housed and improving their life.”

Without the stability of housing, a person can’t get healthier. It's been proven time and time again that providing housing first instead of treatment first works best. Across 26 rigorous studies, doing housing first decreased homelessness by 88% and improved housing stability by 41% compared to doing treatment first.

Housing first, harm reduction, and abstinence approaches to housing don’t have to be in opposition to one another. Different approaches can and should be offered to people experiencing homelessness so as to truly meet people where they are and determine what type of assistance will work best for their unique needs. An abstinence-only approach to housing will not work for everyone and using sobriety or abstinence as a benchmark someone has to meet before entering housing, or to maintain housing, can be a difficult or even impossible barrier to overcome, especially for someone who may not have the necessary support.

People experiencing homelessness in San Francisco can enter PSH through the City’s Coordinated Entry system. Access Points serve as “gateways” into the Coordinated Entry System whereby someone experiencing homelessness can be assessed for their eligibility for housing and prioritized for housing based on their history of homelessness and other risk factors. Very few people who are screened through Coordinated Entry actually get prioritized for housing because the supply of PSH units is limited. Those that are prioritized for housing are referred to a PSH provider with an appropriate vacancy.

The lack of affordable housing is the biggest driver of homelessness.