Community Support for Persons Experiencing Chronic Homelessness (CSPECH) is an evidence-based case management service that proactively identifies and addresses social determinants of health collaboratively with the person served to ensure successful housing navigation/search and tenancy preservation.

Eliot has been operating CSPECH programming in the Commonwealth for the past eleven years. With our broad coverage of the emergency shelter systems coupled with a “seismic” shift in Massachusetts to a Housing First strategy, it became apparent that support services for homeless individuals exiting shelter was a critical need. The Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership (MBHP), a behavioral health managed care organization working under contract with MassHealth, created the CSPECH Program and partnered with a number of licensed behavioral/medical health entities providing services to their homeless patients. MBHP provided funding to five agencies for two full time case managers to serve 24 homeless individuals in each agency who were placed into housing. After several years operating the CSPECH Program under the model described above, it became apparent that the total cost of healthcare and behavioral health services for this population had demonstrated significant expenditure savings to MassHealth.

In addition, a few years later, with the help of MHSA’s advocacy and the implementation of its new “Pay for Success Program”, the other MA Medicaid Managed Care Organizations also approved reimbursement for CSPECH under the same rules and created a “universal” reimbursement rate for the support services. Eliot’s list of CSPECH subcontractors grew over time and today  stands at eighteen agencies, including our own CSPECH program in Lawrence in conjunction with Commonwealth Landtrust. We are also a direct CSPECH provider in conjunction with the City of Boston.