It began "with the idea that many homeless people suffer posttraumatic stress disorder and that this cycle wouldn't be broken unless they have a longer-term supportive community to live in."
[2] Community Housing Partnership sprang from the destruction wreaked upon San Francisco by the massive Loma Prieta earthquake of October 1989, which damaged or destroyed scores of buildings and left some twelve thousand people homeless.
Architectural Record noted that "the building’s first-floor plan encourages residents to take advantage of support services such as substance abuse counseling and psychotherapy, placing them prominently along the primary circulation corridor.
In some places, the towers are bridged by additional living space, creating horizontal bands that add to the diversity of the facade, which is clad in aqua-colored and naturally gray fiber-cement rainscreen panels.
As part of the program, they're also required to provide zero-waste outreach within their buildings, playing a critical role in bringing the city's subsidized, low-income housing in line with mandatory composting and recycling laws.
[8]In 2007 the organization began a partnership with nonprofit REDF to begin a "social venture" called Solutions SF, dedicated to training and employing the formerly homeless for jobs in "lobby service," which entailed serving at the front desk of "affordable and supportive housing" buildings.
Some clients were also hired as full-time employees in property management businesses in San Francisco, and they all learned "customer-service skills that are transferable to other fields," said Gail Gilman, Community Housing Partnership's executive director.