Redesign Required

The 2023 closure of Skid Row Housing Trust shocked many in Los Angeles and the affordable housing community. Once considered a national model of permanent supportive housing (PSH), the Trust was no longer financially sustainable. What were the financial and economic challenges that led to its collapse? And what can the Trust’s closure teach the sector and its funders about sustainably funding and operating permanent supportive housing?

Learn about the contributing factors and their implications for PSH providers in an exclusive report: Redesign Required: Lessons for Permanent Supportive Housing from Skid Row Housing Trust Buildings.

This report provides a comprehensive economic analysis of the Trust’s 29 buildings, leveraging unprecedented access to the Trust’s leadership and financial records as well as dozens of in-depth interviews with former staff, PSH professionals, and government officials. Among the findings:

• Rental subsidies don’t cover the cost of permanent supportive housing. 

• The methods to increase rental subsidy rates are opaque and inconsistent.

• PSH owner-operators have to sustain their under-performing buildings, independent from funds generated by their high-performing buildings 

• Insufficient resources exist to preserve or redevelop aging PSH buildings.

The report also details recommendations for the field and funders:

• Connect rental costs and rent subsidies. 

• Allow for a true portfolio model of buildings.

• Change the approach to compliance.

• Update financial reporting practices to better reflect reality.