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Housing Is Not a Box to Check. It’s the Foundation of the Whole Model.

I’ve sat in dozens of rooms with health plan leaders who tell me they “have a housing strategy.” Then we dig in and it turns out what they really have is a set of one-off flex funds or sporadic community partnerships that help members with rental deposits or eviction prevention.

That’s not a strategy. That’s a transaction.

A real housing strategy is built into the core care model. It’s not a side initiative or a social program managed off to the side it’s an operational engine that powers member outcomes.

Here’s what it actually looks like:

A dedicated budget, not ad-hoc flex spending.
Defined goals for housing stability, aligned to broader health outcomes.
Accountable workflows within clinical and case management teams.
Member-level data integration to track who’s unstably housed and what’s being done about it.
Strategic partnerships, not just a scattered network of 40+ CBOs.
And most importantly, a clear plan for measuring impact and scaling.

This is the difference between checking a box and owning an outcome.

You’re Already Paying for Housing. You Just Don’t See It.

Let’s be honest: a lot of plans are lagging behind. That’s not just my opinion it’s clear in the way they’re treating housing as an outreach program instead of what it is: a clinical issue.

If a health plan is serious about reducing emergency department visits, improving behavioral health outcomes, or even just increasing member engagement then not addressing housing is actively working against those goals.

“You’re already paying for housing instability. You just don’t see it on your invoice.”

That’s the punchline I often give to plan executives. Because housing instability shows up in missed appointments, disengaged members, avoidable hospitalizations, and poor Star ratings. It’s there you’re just not labeling it correctly.

Delaying a housing strategy doesn’t just increase operational risk. It also means:

Falling behind peer plans already acting on CMS waivers.
Missing opportunities to lead in value-based innovation.
Continuing to pay for care that doesn’t work, because the foundation isn’t stable.

Let’s not forget: housing is the first domino. Everything else medication adherence, care coordination, even basic communication depends on a member having a stable place to live.

What the Best Plans Know (That Others Don’t)

We’ve had the chance to partner with health plans that are actually moving the needle on housing and they’re not the ones managing 40 vendors and hoping something sticks.

Here’s what those forward-thinking plans are doing differently:

Reducing fragmentation. One of our partners, coordinating across 20+ CBOs, was struggling under the weight of complexity. Streamlining that into a unified system of care makes housing not just easier to manage, but more effective.
Closing the data loop. Success depends on real-time insights: who’s housed, what interventions are working, and where accountability lies. It’s not enough to refer someone you need to know what happened next.
Treating housing as clinical. The best-performing plans don’t see housing as charity. They see it as a clinical lever that affects everything else. That mindset shift changes how teams operate, how progress is measured, and how investments are made.
Measuring ROI in real time. The CFOs we work with love that we tie housing investments directly to utilization trends, quality scores, and member retention. The return isn’t theoretical it’s visible on the dashboard.

If You’re Hesitating, You’re Already Losing

If I could sit down with every health plan executive still hesitating to make housing a strategic priority, I’d keep it simple:

You’re already paying for the problem. You just haven’t decided to solve it.

The question isn’t whether you can afford to invest in housing, the question is whether you can afford not to. And with the right partner, this isn’t a five-year transformation. You’ll see results quickly. Your teams will align. Your members will re-engage. Your CFO will have the data they’ve been asking for and your plan will stop being reactive and start leading.

You’ll Know It’s Working When This Happens

When a health plan gets this right, the change is unmistakable:

You know how many members are unstably housed and what’s being done about it.
Your teams and vendors operate as a real system of care, not scattered pilots.
Clinical and case management teams are aligned, sharing metrics and speaking the same language.
Your return on investment is clear, not theoretical.

At the end of the day, housing isn’t just another benefit. It’s the ground floor. And for any plan that wants to thrive in value-based care, now is the time to build it.

“If you don’t start with housing, nothing else works.”

Whether it’s Maslow’s hierarchy or a wilderness survival show shelter comes first for a reason. It protects against immediate threats and gives us a foundation to solve everything else.