Affordable Housing and Supportive Services Demonstration (AHSSD) Fact Sheet
What We Do
The Affordable Housing and Supportive Services Demonstration (AHSSD) pilot program provides federal funding to community action agencies (CAAs) and tribes that receive Community Services Block Grant funding and own their own affordable housing units. Award recipients use funds to strengthen, expand, and enhance available wraparound supportive services such as educational opportunities, child care, mental health care, and transportation services to affordable housing residents.
Who We Serve
AHSSD helps CAAs expand affordable housing and related services to those with low incomes within their service area, increasing stability, economic mobility, and well-being.
2023 Highlights
Appropriated by Congress
Months allocated for each grant
8 Community action agencies and one tribal nation that own affordable housing communities are receiving funding for supportive services through the AHSSD demonstration program:
- Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission
- Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, Inc.
- The Chickasaw Nation
- People Incorporated of Virginia
- Mesa Community Action Network, Inc.
- Affordable Housing Alliance, Inc.
- Northwest Indiana Community Action
- Action, Inc.
- Rural Alaska Community Action Program, Inc.
Why do we need AHSSD?
Housing instability, including challenges such as high housing cost burdens, frequent moves, trouble paying for housing, and overcrowding, can impact access to health care and health for children and families.
- Nearly 50% of renters are cost-burdened — spending more than 30% of their income on rent.
- One in four renters spend over half of their income on rent.
- According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) point-in-time assessment conducted in January 2023, more than 650,000 people were experiencing homelessness across the country.
- Children moving three or more times in a year[S(1] [A(2] more likely to experience negative health outcomes.
- Mortality rates are higher for homeless individuals. In one study conducted in Boston of adults ages 25 – 44, men who were homeless had a mortality rate that was nine times higher than that of the general population, and women who were homeless had a rate that was 10 times higher.
Affordable Housing and Supportive Services Demonstration Program
Division of Community Discretionary and Demonstration Programs
Office of Community Services