Sam J. Tsemberis (born March 11, 1949, in Skoúra,Lakonia, Greece) is a Greek Canadian clinical and community psychology practitioner, and the founder and executive director of Pathways to Housing, a Housing First program for individuals with serious mental illnesses, long histories of homelessness, and often co-occurring substance abuse.

The model also proved more cost effective, in large part due to reductions in psychiatric hospital stays.

[10] Indeed, a current problem is that everyone is jumping on the housing first bandwagon, whether they actually adhere to the core principles of consumer choice or not.

Deborah Padgett and Benjamin Henwood of the book Housing First: Ending Homelessness, Changing Systems and Transforming Lives[12] (2016, Oxford University Press), which documents the rise of the approach and the evidence of its efficacy.

[15] He was listed as one of the speakers at the 2019 Housing First Scotland Conference[16] and the Mayor’s Summit on Homelessness in Amarillo, which took place in July 2019.