Last month, Destination: Home and the Santa Clara County Continuum of Care proudly launched a new Supportive Housing Institute – a five-part training series designed to help local housing developers, property managers and service providers to deliver high quality supportive housing in our community.
The Supportive Housing Institute is a key element of our Continuum of Care’s ongoing commitment to improving the way we serve unhoused members of our community and deliver a state of the art supportive housing system here in Santa Clara County – a key element of the 2020-2025 Community Plan to End Homelessness, particularly as our community continues to invest in more deeply affordable housing. Since adoption of the 2016 Measure A affordable housing bond, our community has opened 830 new deeply affordable and supportive apartments. About 650 more units will welcome new residents later this year, with another 3,000 units in the pipeline scheduled to come online in the next few years.
“It’s truly remarkable how many partners have come together over the past few years to build and operate this desperately-needed type of housing in our community, and provide safe and stable homes to our most vulnerable neighbors. And as we continue to expand Supportive Housing development, it’s critical that we invest in training and learning opportunities that will help our partners build more capacity and deliver top-notch service.”
Ray Bramson, Destination: Home Chief Operating Officer
Delivered in partnership with the Santa Clara County Office of Supportive Housing and the Corporation for Supportive Housing, the Supportive Housing Institute was specifically-designed for service providers, property management, developers, and jurisdictional partners who are directly involved with providing supportive housing in our community. Over the course of the training, participants are diving into a wide range of topics dealing with the day-to-day realities of building and operating high-quality supportive housing:
Since the training series launched in March, over 90 attendees from a diverse group of supportive housing partners have participated in the Supportive Housing Institute, gaining not only practical knowledge that can be applied to their day-to-day efforts but also building community and connection with other members of the training cohort.
“Our staff have found the training very practical and useful for their daily property management work at numerous permanent supportive housing properties in Santa Clara County. We believe this, and ongoing training provides important tools and resources to help improve our daily interactions with the clients, and also our regular communication and collaboration with the Resident Service teams at each supportive housing property. We look forward to ongoing training opportunities for our staff as we continue to build our supportive housing property management teams to assist Owners, OSH, and other stakeholders open new supportive housing properties serving the most vulnerable in our communities.”
Warren Reed, Vice President of the South Bay Region at The John Stewart Company
Learn more about the Santa Clara County Supportive Housing Institute and how we’re investing in affordable housing throughout the county.