Our History
In 2008, city officials in Philadelphia engaged Pathways to bring its evidence-based Housing First model to Philadelphia to help end chronic homelessness. We currently house more than 600 people in regular apartments across the community, with an unprecedented 86% housing retention rate for participants. These same participants would be considered not housing ready in other programs.
As an alternative to emergency shelter and transitional housing, Pathways’ Housing First model is simple: provide housing without preconditions, and then address underlying issues around mental health, substance use, medical care, and education to welcome people back into the community. Pathways was the first to expand the Housing First model to work with individuals with opioid use disorder, as well as the first to adapt the model for shared housing for 2-3 participants rather than individuals only.
Many Pathways participants have serious, chronic, and untreated medical issues that have been neglected for years and require significant healthcare coordination. Pathways’ Integrated Care Clinic was launched in 2016 to ensure our participants have access to a person-centered approach that emphasizes recovery, wellness, trauma-informed care, and the integration of physical and behavioral health care.
Our clinic has since expanded to include a Center of Excellence (COE) for opioid use disorder, which maintains medication for OUD, recovery support services, and benefits coordination to more than 200 participants with opioid use disorder.
In late 2014, Pathways opened the Philadelphia Furniture Bank as a centralized resource for furniture for human service organizations from across Philadelphia. Member agencies schedule appointments for clients who then choose their furniture to start fresh as they move out of homelessness. Each individual or family receives a full home’s worth of furniture, including brand new bedding. The Furniture Bank has furnished more than 8,000 homes since 2014.
In 2022, we launched our first social enterprise, Good Haul. This junk hauling service works in tandem with the Philadelphia Furniture Bank, ensuring that useable furniture items are delivered to PFB. Other useable household items are sent to our partner nonprofits like Circle Thrift and Habitat for Humanity's ReStore, technology and other recyclable items are recycled, metal is scrapped, and the number of items that end up in a landfill are minimized to the best of our ability. Revenue from Good Haul is reinvested in the Philadelphia Furniture Bank.
One key aspect of recovery is finding purpose. We launched a Work First transitional employment program at the Philadelphia Furniture Bank to support those who are re-entering the work force by providing work first, and supports to ensure they are able to find stability. We currently employ up to 20 Work First staff supporting both PFB and Good Haul operations.
The Alumni Association was launched in 2021 to support participants who are capable of and interested in living more independently, who have outgrown the level of care provided by Pathways to Housing PA. Housing First does not always translate into housing forever, and we want participants to achieve their independent living goals - whatever those goals may be.
Philadelphia is a city of abandoned lots, houses that are shells of their former selves, and people experiencing homelessness. We launched Pathways Housing Wellness Corporation (PHWC) in 2021 to rebuild those lost homes into moderate sized multi-family units that fit into the landscape of the neighborhood.
