A New Housing Model for Kentucky
SJC began providing scattered-site Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) in 2008 to meet a specific unmet need for housing for the individuals the Common Assessment Team identified as the most vulnerable. We are one of nine scattered-site permanent supportive housing providers in Louisville. Today, SJC provides housing and permanent case management for 93 formerly chronically homeless men. We provide a uniquely successful program model. In 2019, 19% of residents in all of Louisville’s permanent supportive housing programs returned to homelessness within 12 months. During the same year, only 2% of individuals living in SJC’s program returned to homelessness.
Since the start of the PSH program in 2008, the program’s housing retention rate has always exceeded the 80% HUD-mandated rate of individuals in the program who must retain housing for six or more months. In FY 2021, 98% of SJC’s PSH clients retained their housing for 12 months.
In the Spring of 2023, SJC will break ground on a supportive housing development that will be the first of its kind in Louisville and Kentucky. Working with LDG Development, we will create 80 one-bedroom apartments in a building with on-site services for residents that will reduce isolation, increase access to social support, improve health outcomes, improve community integration, and contribute to recovery.
Sheehan Landing, named after St. John Center’s founding director, Sister Mary Kathleen Sheehan, is a Housing First development that will provide 80 furnished one-bedroom apartments. These apartments will be specially designed to address the unique needs of people who experience multiple, complex physical and mental disabilities. The apartments will be designed to be accessible to people with limited mobility and will include specialized safety features.
Most importantly, the apartments will be in a building that provides 24-hour staffing and security. Case managers will be on-site so that residents have access to support when they need it most. St. John Center has partnered with Phoenix Health Center to provide medical healthcare services in the building. Residents will have access to Dare to Care food support, behavioral health care services, payee services, and legal services. Sheehan Landing will also have community space that will allow residents to gather in groups for support, education, and socialization.
St. John Center anticipates that Sheehan Landing will be fully occupied and operational by January 2025. We look forward to filling this critical gap in services in the Louisville area. Most importantly, we know that lives will be changed for the better because Sheehan Landing will provide new opportunities for the hardest-to-house people in our community.