Supportive Housing

The Supportive Housing Alliance, formerly known as the Stewardship Council, is an interagency working group whose purpose is to directly impact the creation, preservation, and stabilization of supportive housing as a key component in Minnesota’s work to prevent and end homelessness. The Supportive Housing Alliance is committed to increasing equitable access and increasing the development of supportive housing. The Supportive Housing Alliance’s scope includes supportive housing that is scattered-site or site-based, targeted to those experiencing homelessness and persons with disabilities.

The Supportive Housing Alliance has worked with community partners to develop supportive housing standards. Read more about the current work to implement the standards.

PowerPoint presentation
Recorded session

Office Hours: Supportive housing staff host regular engagement sessions with supportive housing providers to cover topics of interest and answer questions. Meeting invitations are sent on our agency eNews. Be sure to subscribe to the Supportive Housing topic to receive the eNews.

Contact supportive.housing@state.mn.us

Housing Support is a state funded income supplement program that pays for room and board for low-income adults with disabilities. There is also a service rate for eligible households in certain settings. For more information, refer to the DHS Housing Support webpage or contact your county's human service Housing Support program manager.

DHS Contacts

Webinar Overview of Housing Support, Minnesota Supplemental Aid (MSA) and Housing Stabilization Services

In cooperation with Minnesota Housing, DHS held a webinar session on programs used within supportive housing, including Housing Support, MSA and MSA Housing Assistance, and Housing Stabilization Services with particular emphasis on changes to these programs that occurred in 2020 and 2021. Watch the recorded session (02:03:15) or download the presentation.

Housing Support: How it Works in Operation Training Session on June 8, 2022

Minnesota Housing hosted this session focused on how Housing Support works in actual practice for developments with supportive housing units. The session covered the following topics:

• DHS staff provided an overview of the Housing Support Program.
• Two service providers reviewed their role in providing Housing Support.
• A property manager reviewed their role including how to use the Minnesota Housing Income and Rent Calculation Form for Housing Support to determine a tenant's subsidy and income to use for reporting and compliance.

Watch the recorded session (1:49:38) or download the presentation for more information.

• DHS overview of program (minute 02:22)
• Service provider role (minute 15:30)
• Questions (minute 44:00)
• Property management role and completing the rent and income calculation form (minute 54:30)
• Questions (minute 1:10:00)

Other materials from the session include:

• Questions and Answers
• Example forms used by some Housing Support Providers:
  • Participation Agreement
  • Earned Income Disregard
  • Sample Budget (Simpson Housing)

Housing Stabilization Services is a new Minnesota Medical Assistance benefit to help people with disabilities, including mental illness and substance use disorder, and seniors find and keep housing.

Learn more about the new benefit and how to become an enrolled service provider on the DHS Housing Stabilization Services webpage.

Recorded Webinar for Housing Providers

The Training is a high-level overview of the services for housing providers and specific information that all housing providers need to know to help tenants access services.

Watch the recorded training (01:36:03)

Technical Assistance is also available from the Housing Stabilization Services Technical Assistance Team, a partnership between CSH, Ei Consultants, MESH and North Star Policy Consulting. Their goal is to support agencies and communities across the state in using Medicaid for housing supports in order to maximize resources needed to end homelessness.

For more information, visit https://mesh-mn.org/hssta

Minnesota Housing provides capital funding for site-based supportive housing units and Housing Trust Fund (HTF) tenant-based rental assistance for high-priority homeless households. All providers are required to collect tenant data in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). In addition, all site-based supportive housing service providers and management agents also complete an annual supportive housing survey.

The Annual Report summarizes key highlights from this data for the period from October 1, 2021 - September 30, 2022.

Minnesota Housing worked with the Technical Assistance Collaborative (TAC) and Human Services Research Institute (HSRI) to conduct an extensive evaluation of the supportive housing portfolio and to examine best practices for supportive housing at several housing finance agencies around the country.

The evaluation and best practices reports were completed in 2020 and are rich with information. They deliver the evaluation results and include recommendations for Minnesota Housing to further strengthen its portfolio and practices. Minnesota Housing staff have used these recommendations to develop an action plan for supportive housing development, oversight and monitoring.

Minnesota Housing held a webinar to discuss the results. Watch the recorded webinar (1:30:00 - start watching at the three minute mark) or download the presentation to learn more.