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A Supportive housing initiative Program to Deconstruct the barriers from marginalized people of TGNCNBI+ experience in South Florida.

In the State of Florida, we all know that everyone is currently in need of a safe, comfortable, and stable housing environment. Living in South Florida as we all know the transgender community are some of the most vulnerable people in society. Black transgender people in particular are individuals who are disproportionately affected by mental illness, chronic health conditions, histories of trauma, and other struggles that puts both transgender and nonbinary folks who are and who are not living with in a very dark place. Having and knowing that you have a home helps  get adequate treatment and start on the path toward recovery and an amazing start to a better future. Oftentimes conditions make it difficult for people to maintain a stable home without additional help. Supportive housing, a highly effective strategy that combines affordable housing with intensive coordinated services, can provide that needed assistance.

Without stable housing transgender and nonbinary folks can drastically worsen health. Homelessness can exacerbate a plethora of issues such as mental illness, make ending substance abuse difficult, and prevent chronic physical health conditions from being addressed. Transgender people with these and other health issues often end up in crisis situations while living on the streets, couch surfing and emergency rooms may be the only health care they are able to access.

Housing is a crisis, but supportive housing is a part of the solution. Some people may need their housing coupled with supportive services to maintain it. For example, service providers can help people with mental illness pay their rent on time and understand the rights and responsibilities outlined in a lease, or can make sure people with chronic illnesses manage their diet and medicine properly, which can keep them out of hospitals or nursing homes.

Supportive housing effectively helps people with disabilities to maintain stable housing. People in supportive housing use costly systems like emergency health services less frequently and are less likely to be incarcerated. Supportive housing also can aid people with disabilities in getting better health care and help those trying to stay in the community as they become self-sufficient. 

Administrators, healthcare providers, organizations, and Policymakers providers are increasingly aware that there is a lack of stable housing which can interfere with health goals,  that linking care with supportive housing can produce better outcomes for some people than providing them separately. In the state of Florida we don’t have any supportive housing to meet the need.