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While on vacation in Ireland, Breaking Ground founder Rosanne Haggerty looked into how that country addresses the housing needs of its poorest residents.

Breaking Ground offers affordable housing for low-income working professionals and people exiting homelessness, some of whom live with HIV/AIDS, mental illness, or physical disabilities. In addition, most of our buildings offer a wide array of on-site support services, recreational activities, and amenities.

It can take several weeks or months to find appropriate housing, as there are a limited number of vacancies in the system and searching for supportive housing can be very time consuming.

Supportive housing is for individuals and, to a lesser extent, families who are at serious risk of being chronically homeless because of one or more barriers to independence. About half of all New York City supportive housing is set aside for individuals coping with serious mental illness.

With more than 50,000 units of supportive housing, New York continues to lead the nation in providing a permanent solution to homelessness.

Supportive Housing Models Supportive housing typically comes in two setting model types: congregate (the only one developers work with) and scattered-site.

The STEHP program provides assistance for individuals and families to remain in or obtain permanent housing, and assistance with supportive services during their experience of homelessness, the eviction process and housing stabilization.