25 years ago I visited (as a prospective intern) a community mental health center in Salt Lake City, UT. I was blown away by what I learned: it seemed to be a financially solvent CMCH providing housing to almost all their clients who needed it. Most CMHCs are constantly struggling for cash, turning people away, and underpaying their staff who are a self-selecting group of -professionals willing to take a pay cut so they can serve the people who need to be helped.
The director told us that, several years earlier, they had hired a finance person who convinced the execs to take a risk: instead of renting apartments as needed for their unhoused clients, they bought some units. They saved money pretty quickly (possibly due to cultural/geographic factors difficult to replicate elsewhere; IDK) and bought more housing units. By the time I visited they owned several apartment buildings. They rented some of the apartments at market rates, which allowed them to give sliding-fee rents to clients who needed housing; apparently, plenty of clients got free housing. After a few years, he said, they were housing nearly all clients who needed it, and of course the treatment success rates went up, because not having to worry about housing is great for mental health, keeping jobs, childcare, etc. Many clients' incomes grew, so they started paying more rent and increasing the organization's ability to provide services, including more housing.
Someone in our applicant group asked something like "do you have some buildings for clients and others for non-client residents?" He said no, they were mixed, and (a) the non-client residents, who knew that many of their neighbors were struggling with mental health and substance use, seemed quite happy to live in the units; they were priced affordably in the market, for one thing; (b) the clients benefited by living in "normal housing" instead of being sequestered in "low-income" or "mentally ill" apartment complexes. Many people reportedly formed lasting friendships and the clients seemed to do better, overall, with mixed-income neighbors.
I think (? long time ago, hazy memory) he said they had become one of the larger real estate owners in the Salt Lake Valley, and the CMHC had a significant investment fund that they used for services most CMHCs can't afford.
I only know his spiel, so I only know the PR from 25 years ago (approximately 2003), but for a grad student working in a standard underfunded CMHC, damn was that ever impressive. I've often wondered (a) how much of the spiel was PR vs reality, and (b) how realistic this would be for other CMHCs. If even half of it was non-bullshit, it's deeply impressive.
I didn't get the SLC placement, sadly. The CMHC I worked at right then, in Columbus, Ohio, had two separate CEOs led out of the main offices in handcuffs within two years, allegedly for embezzling and other stuff. We were not the same.
*Edit: conciseness*
#housing #mentalhealth #funding #utah #saltlake
There's not enough housing for America's poorest while low-income units sit empty
By Claire Rush
September 7, 2026
"Mathew Davis, who lives in a #HomelessShelter in Austin, Texas, would love an apartment of his own. But with the little money he makes donating blood plasma, even a $450-a-month tiny home with no running water and a communal bathroom would be a stretch.
"Meanwhile, over 4,500 units the city classifies as affordable — nearly 16% — sit empty.
" 'I don’t make enough money really to afford anything,' Davis, 49, said of the few hundred dollars he earns a month. 'I just keep trying to swim uphill.'
"The poorest people in the U.S. face the most acute shortages of affordable homes. But the majority of low-income housing financed in recent years is for those earning 50% of an area’s median income or above, according to a survey of state housing agencies.
"Some cities are now seeing an uptick in vacancies as rents for these units approach market rates. The result: Apartments designated as affordable sit empty because the poorest of the poor cannot afford them.
"Meanwhile, some people are forced into #homelessness and others into desperate circumstances to pay for housing they can’t afford."
Read more:
https://apnews.com/article/affordable-housing-shortage-poorest-us-80fab2a0fb645e4d629b0ef7e3c2b496
cc: NewsBot (npub1nsc…rjks) Just Bob (npub1ge0…eeuc)
#USPol #Unhoused #Housing #Homeless #EmptyBuildings #VacantBuildings #NoAffordableHousing