Mission

The Columbia Center for Homelessness Prevention Studies (CHPS), based at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, was initiated in October 2005, with a P30 ACISR grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. The Center brings together a multidisciplinary group of scientists from many schools and departments at Columbia and across the nation.

Our mission is to conduct research on the development and subsequent dissemination of interventions at both the individual and population levels designed to prevent and end homelessness for youth, families, and individual adults at risk of serious and disabling mental illness. The Center's membership includes service providers, policymakers, and consumers, whose expertise helps to ensure the policy and clinical relevance and eventual uptake of research initiatives undertaken by the Center. Ultimately, it is hoped that the services and housing policy research created through the Center will improve the lives of people with mental illness at risk of homelessness so that they can achieve recovery, lasting housing stability, and greater life fulfillment.