Sam J. Tsemberis

The Role of Psychiatry in Permanent Supported Housing

Permanent Supported Housing (or as it is sometimes known—Permanent Supportive Housing [PSH]) is a general term that has been used since the mid-1980s to describe an approach that combines the provision of permanent, affordable, or subsidized housing and intensive individualized treatment and support services for people with severe psychiatric disabilities. The type of housing varies and exists on a continuum from individual independent apartments scattered in the community to large single-site congregate residential buildings with anywhere from 15 to 100 units, with occasional buildings having hundreds of apartments. Support and treatment services for these two types of housing also vary with services for tenants in scattered-site apartments provided by off-site interdisciplinary teams, while for those living in congregate settings, services are provided by clinical staff that is on-site, with offices and program space as part of the building. While the structural and operational features of supported housing programs vary, their overall goal is to improve social integration and quality of life of people with psychiatric disabilities, to reduce the problems people have in achieving stable housing and to increase the potential for successful recovery from psychiatric disability.