PCHO Inc.

THE ONLY ANSWER TO HOMELESSNESS IS A HOME Person Centered Housing Options Inc. was founded by Nicholas J. Coulter and Charlie C. Albanese in August of 2015. Nick was providing outreach and case management to vulnerable families and individuals on the streets. Chuck was working with the Health Systems and seeing the same households lacking the services they needed to better their health and wellness due to a lack of safe and supportive housing services. With that, PCHO was born and sought to address, prevent, and alleviate homelessness using the Housing First model as an evidence-based practice that focuses efforts on the strong relationships and access to robust health care and support services while prioritizing housing, because the only answer to homelessness is a home. PCHO combines innovative approaches to providing housing with essential supportive services that engage individuals and families in health care, community relationships, activities that support recovery and employment; but none of this is possible without a home. Housing First is an innovative movement to improve the way housing for the homeless works. Conventional housing options typically require that the homeless person or family resolve a number of issues before they qualify for housing. These can include treatment for addiction or mental illness, obtaining identification, beginning a job search, etc. The problem with this approach is that it can be virtually impossible to complete these requirements without a permanent place to live. As a result, many of our area's homeless cannot begin the process of finding housing. Housing First reverses this approach and offers basic housing without conditions, before requiring a program of self-improvement. It comes from the experience that with safe, permanent housing you have a home base to begin to put a life back together. You have an address, a phone number, a safe place for your things and, perhaps most important, the very difficult daily task of finding shelter no longer takes up the majority of your time and energy. Person Centered Housing Options (PCHO) combines this approach with intensive outreach, and care coordination services that meets every individual and family where they are at. Each person is in a different place in their lives, and PCHO wants to be there to provide them with whatever they need to survive and begin to thrive. After almost 8 years in existence, PCHO has 35 employees, 9 programs and are growing to meet the needs of the homeless in our community.

We focus on: Human Services, Health

Where we are: Monroe