Public Higher Education Bulletin

The Center for Housing and Health leads the only collaborative in Chicago and Cook County of supportive housing providers for the homeless. The collaborative is called Better Health Through Housing (BHH); and the Center for Housing and Health serves as its coordinating entity and fiscal agent. The collaborative itself is not a legal entity but an association of 28 supportive housing providers serving the homeless.

CHH is the awardee of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and State of Illinois supportive service grants that provide housing for highly vulnerable homeless individuals and families who are also high users of health care services. Its programs provide system-wide coordination and a "housing-First" approach to supportive housing. The collaborative, named "Better Health Through Housing", (BHH) has commitment from 25 Chicago area supportive housing agencies that will provide up to 125 scattered 1- bedroom apartments for the homeless. The BHH Collaborative will provide to UI Health homeless outreach and engagement services, and both immediate bridge housing units and 1 bedroom apartments for up to 25 chronically homeless UI Health patients identified primarily in the Emergency Room but also in the Psychiatry and other departments.

The University has determined that this purchase is only economically available from this source because the CHH, as the lead agency for the BHH Collaborative, is representing 80% of the supportive housing units in Chicago and Cook County for the homeless, and it is the only organization that has received a waiver to bypass the Chicago Continuum of Care Central Referral System (CRS). In Chicago and Cook County, all available supportive housing units for the homeless must go through a HUD-mandated Coordinated Access process (CRS in Chicago) that presently has a list of over 10,000 homeless individuals awaiting housing placement.