History of the Provider Group

In 1997, the Family Housing Fund (the Fund) convened leaders from housing and human service agencies, public and private funders, and the faith community to develop a plan to provide supportive housing (affordable housing with support services) for homeless families. At that time, the Fund engaged the consulting firm of Hart-Shegos and Associates, Inc, to coordinate an initiative to stabilize the area’s existing supportive housing and help providers plan for housing and services.

As part of that planning process, the Fund convened the Supportive Housing Provider Group ( the Provider Group). The Provider Group has evolved into a vibrant professional network of 17 nonprofit sponsors of supportive housing for families in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. The Provider Group members meet several times a year to share information and find ways to collaborate on service provision. Together, the Provider Group agencies sponsor more than 500 units of supportive housing for nearly 1500 formerly homeless children and their parents.

Members serve widely diverse constituencies, including families with a parent in recovery from chemical dependency, families escaping domestic violence, women leaving prostitution, families involved with child protective services, families with HIV/AIDS, single parents in education programs, and a large percentage of formerly homeless families from communities of color.

In 2000, the Family Housing Fund (the Fund) launched the Supportive Housing Initiative to assist Provider Group agencies with the costs of development, renovation, and stabilization of supportive housing facilities. Through this initiative, the Fund assisted in stabilization or new construction of over 350 family supportive housing units. The Fund’s investment of $4.5 million in private philanthropic funds leveraged more than $65 million from federal, state, and local government sources. The Fund also helped secure operating assistance from the federal Section 8 project-based voucher program for 20 supportive housing projects with 317 units. These vouchers have an estimated total value of $3.4 million per year over a ten-year period, for a total of $34 million.

Over time, as the Supportive Housing Initiative addressed facility stabilization needs, the Provider Group turned their attention to the program service needs of their residents. Specifically, the Provider Group members identified residents’ unaddressed mental illness and chemical dependency as a primary obstacle to parents’ ability to retain custody of their children and comply with lease obligations. The providers also felt that mental and chemical health disorders were widely under-diagnosed in the children themselves, leading to behavioral problems that threaten the family’s housing and the children’s school success. In addition, the Provider Group has long identified direct services for children as a priority, particularly those aimed at promoting health, early childhood development, academic success, and parent-child relationships. Therefore, in 2005, the Fund and the Provider Group launched the Healthy Families Network, later named the Visible Child Initiative, under which agencies will share mental health, chemical health, and children’s services for residents.