Pathways to Housing is an intensely client-driven program that is based on the philosophy that consumers can determine their own destinies. Pathways offers clients immediate access to an apartment of their own without requiring participation in psychiatric treatment or treatment for sobriety.  Honoring clients’ choices is the fundamental principle that guides all support and clinical services.  In addition, Pathways adheres to a harm reduction philosophy, believing that it is better to mitigate the harm incurred from certain behaviours, rather than outright prohibiting them.

Unlike traditional housing programs, Pathways’ admission requirements are minimal: to be eligible, clients must be homeless, have a psychiatric disability, and elect to participate in the program. After settling into new apartments, clients are offered a wide range of support and clinical services that include psychiatric and substance abuse treatment, comprehensive health care, supported employment services, art and photography workshops, and family reconnection.

Pathways to Housing separates housing from treatment. It treats homelessness by providing people with individual apartments, and then treats mental illness by intensive and individualized programs that seek out and actively work with clients as long as they need, in order to address their emotional, psychiatric, medical, and human needs, on a twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week basis. Ultimately, Pathways to Housing is dedicated to working with people others reject or deem beyond treatment or recovery. Yet, in its brief history, Pathways—unique in its providing housing first, has demonstrated a remarkable 85% retention rate.

Not only does the program work, it is also one of the most cost-effective solutions to ending chronic homelessness. Pathways can provide individual apartments with extensive support services for an annual cost of $22,500 per client; a bed in a state psychiatric hospital costs $175,000 a year.