Helping People Experiencing Homelessness
UPMC Health Plan was an early adopter of supportive housing programs and under the UPMC Center for Social Impact has expanded the ways in which they support member-centric and community-based housing supports. These efforts are bundled under the name Homeward. To learn more about Homeward, see the Homeward Fact Sheet. See Andrea's story and Marcus's story to hear more about how Homeward programming changes lives.
Our Cultivating Health for Success (CHFS) program connects our members in need of housing with the support they need while wrapping around services to enable access to physical and behavioral health care. UPMC Health Plan has operated CHFS in Allegheny County since 2010. This collaboration amongst UPMC Health Plan, Community Human Services, and Allegheny County Department of Human Services Continuum of Care (DHS CoC) braids available housing subsidies with Community Based Organization (CBO) expertise and case management to find, secure, and maintain permanent housing options for high need, medically and behaviorally complex members. It is among the longest standing and one of few proven models for improving health and lowering cost for homeless members over a long-term period. CHFS continues to demonstrate quality improvement and lower costs; additionally, we also are expanding geographically to test the scalability of this innovative housing program. We expanded to Lawrence and Blair Counties in 2021 and Erie County in 2025. We continue to explore expansion to new counties across the state of Pennsylvania.
Housing Through Cooperative Investments
The UPMC Center for Social Impact has helped UPMC and its related companies to go upstream and invest in health through housing. This work has led to the development of two affordable housing investment funds, equity investment into companies building affordable units, land donations, and low-cost loans to housing-related initiatives in the Pittsburgh region.