People thrive with equitable opportunities, support, and communities that value them.
We create homes that provide residents with the support, stability, and community connections they need to live and thrive.
At Community Housing Network, we envision a future where everyone is thriving because they have equitable opportunities, support, and communities that value them. This vision inspires us to provide more than just housing. We know that everyone is more successful when they also have strong support surrounding them. That’s why CHN will always focus on offering our residents supportive services so they have homes and the support, stability, and community connections they need to live and thrive.
Thanks to an anonymous gift and all of YOU who contributed to our matching gift campaign, we raised nearly $1.5 million to grow our service team. This expansion reduced our service staff to resident ratio from 1:200 to 1:50. Your generosity made an immediate and meaningful impact on the people we serve. With the additional support, residents are saying “I don’t feel so alone and can focus on doing what I need to do,” and “I have a person who cares about me!”
The word community is in our name for a reason. We couldn’t do what we do without you. Thank you for your unwavering support in 2022, and we look forward to helping our community alongside you in 2023.
Samantha Shuler CEO
In every CHN property, we further equity for our residents. In addition to housing people with mental illness, homelessness, addiction, and other trauma-related issues, we connect them to supportive services to help them heal and thrive. By helping our residents thrive, we go a long way toward erasing the stigma of homelessness and mental illness. We create neighborhoods and workplaces where people of diverse backgrounds and incomes live together. Where people truly see each other, with mutual compassion and respect. With your support, CHN not only helps residents build positive outcomes that span their entire lives, we also build positive outcomes that span our entire community.
CHN opened Touchstone Field Place, a new 56-unit apartment building. Like all CHN buildings, Touchstone Field Place is rent-subsidized
All of the residents moved into their new home just days before the holiday season.
With the YMCA as our service partner, Touchstone Field Place serves as a new, permanent supportive home for those who would have been displaced when the YMCA’s
2,062 individuals served
397 children in CHN housing
99% of residents successfully maintain housing
150+ sites in 28 different zip codes county-wide
The average length of stay for a CHN resident is 5 years
“The things I was doing, I would have ended up in prison or I would have been dead,” a CHN resident said.
“When I think of CHN, I think of opportunities that meet everyone.”
CHN residents have access to a range of voluntary support services to help them remain housed and healthy over the long term. Thanks to an anonymous $1+ million gift and a successful matching campaign, we were able to provide supportive services to over 600 residents and lower our staff-to-resident ratio from 1:200 to 1:50. Because of this historic gift, residents have access to enhanced resources and connections to move forward toward their goals.
Through supportive services, CHN residents have help obtaining addiction counseling; regular healthcare; benefits assistance; transportation; skills training; and education.
• Began its 35th year of operations in October 2022
• Incorporates trauma-informed design in all of its buildings
• Has six service partners:
Huckleberry House Integrated Services for Behavioral Health
National Church Residences
Southeast Healthcare
YMCA of Central Ohio
Read more about our supportive services transformation by scanning the QR code
“
My engagement coordinator taught me how to open a savings account and helped me to apply for financial aid to go back to school. She taught me how to make a daily schedule to manage my priorities so I can juggle school, parenting, and household responsibilities. I’m grateful to have someone to go to for advice.”
— CHN Resident
• In 2022, we continued expanding our community engagement by launching a volunteer program. Volunteers are critical to advance our mission, and during its pilot year, our program drew 86 volunteers to CHN and generated 483 volunteer hours.
• CHN champions diversity, equity, and inclusion in all practices. In 2022, we engaged Columbus’s Citywide Training Department for an all-staff training series that explored implicit biases, understanding them, the effects they cause, and how to address them. Our board of trustees also participated in a retreat to further develop CHN’s DEI plan with board-related strategies, success indicators, and timelines.
• Construction on our newest development Poplar Fen Place will start in 2023. The project will provide 44 units of permanent supportive housing to seniors who are experiencing homelessness, mental illness, addiction, and other trauma-related issues. Many seniors are housing cost-burdened as a result of low-incomes. According to the Community Shelter Board, there are 300 individuals over the age of 55 living in shelters or on the street in Columbus. Poplar Fen Place will help Columbus and Franklin County address the rise in elderly homelessness that is evident both locally and nationally.
In 2022, we continued to make inroads to add affordable housing across Franklin County, address homelessness, and save public funds for our community. In fact, HUD singled out CHN’s work as an example of best practice when HUD Secretary Fudge, Senator Brown, Congresswoman Beatty, and Mayor Ginther toured our latest development, Touchstone Field Place.
L-R U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Marcia Fudge; Senator Sherrod Brown; Samantha Shuler; Representative Joyce Beatty; City of Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther
Diamond and her young children became homeless after she lost her job suddenly. When all other options had been exhausted, the family had no choice but to move into a family shelter. After several months and multiple case managers, Diamond was connected with CHN. In December 2009, she signed a lease and moved into her new apartment with her two young boys and her newborn baby. “I said to them, ‘This is ours. This is our house. This is ours.’’’
CHN provided the stability Diamond and her family needed and helped connect her with mental health services. Diamond said her property manager, Tashia, has been her biggest supporter, her biggest advocate, and her biggest outlet.
Diamond was able to go back to school and graduated from college twice — once in paralegal studies and once in criminal justice. She now works as a paralegal at a local law firm, and also works at Maryhaven. Her oldest son started college in Fall 2022, and her three youngest are thriving in school. After calling CHN home for nearly 13 years, Diamond moved her family into a market-rent apartment in August of 2022. She hopes to buy her own house within the next couple of years.
“I can never thank the program enough for the opportunity when everyone else told me no. CHN gave me the best to be able to take care of my kids,” Diamond said. “It’s time for someone else’s family to use this program. I have everything I need.”
Dushka Crane, PhD
Board Chair
Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
Samuel Stephens Treasurer
Huntington National Bank
Brandon Guisinger Secretary
Giant Eagle
Paul W. Bloomfield
Kohr Royer Griffith, Inc.
Matthew Glover
PNC Bank
Linda S. Janes
Alvis, Inc.
Connie Luck
ConVista Public Affairs
Sanleda Morgan
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
John Royer
Kohr Royer Griffith, Inc.
Lisa Whittaker
The J.M. Smucker Company
JV Wulf
Spectra Medical Devices, LLC
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It’s not just my quality of life that improved— everyone in my life is better now because of CHN’s intervention. It’s a domino effect.”
— Nkemdilim, CHN resident
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For more information and to donate, please scan the QR code or go to chninc.org
