CenCal Health Partners With Upside to Deliver CalAIM Housing Supports on California’s Central Coast

September 4, 2025

Upside serves as a Community Supports Provider for the CalAIM Housing Trio, helping Medi-Cal members in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties find, secure, and keep stable housing.

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL and SANTA BARBARA, CA — Upside, a nationally scalable housing stability platform purpose-built for healthcare, today announced its partnership with CenCal Health, the Medi-Cal managed care plan serving Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Under the partnership, Upside delivers the CalAIM Community Supports Housing Trio — Housing Transition Navigation Services, Housing Tenancy and Sustaining Services, and Housing Deposits — to eligible CenCal Health members. The program launched on September 4, 2025, following an August 2025 kickoff.

CalAIM, California’s reorganization of Medi-Cal, allows managed care plans to offer housing services as Community Supports when they are clinically appropriate. The model rests on a simple idea: a member without a stable place to live struggles to keep appointments, fill prescriptions, or recover after a hospital stay. The partnership brings a dedicated housing team to CenCal Health members whose health depends on getting housed and staying housed.

“Housing needs don’t resolve with a referral or a list of phone numbers — they resolve when a member has a lease in hand and the support to keep it,” said Jake Rothstein, Co-Founder and CEO of Upside. “CenCal Health has built a Community Supports program that puts housing where it belongs, inside the care plan. Our job is to take each case from the first call to a signed lease and stay with the member after the move. We’re proud to bring that work to the Central Coast.”

How the program serves members

CenCal Health refers eligible members to Upside each week, and members can also reach Upside directly by phone. After CenCal Health confirms eligibility, an Upside Care Guide — a licensed social worker or housing specialist — contacts the member, learns their situation, and builds a housing plan around their goals. The Care Guide then works the plan alongside the member: finding units, completing applications, gathering documents, and working with landlords. Housing Deposits help cover the upfront costs of moving in, and Tenancy and Sustaining Services keep the Care Guide involved after the move so the new home lasts.

The program focuses on CenCal Health members who face the highest health risks tied to housing, including:

• Individuals and families experiencing homelessness
• Adults at risk for avoidable hospital and emergency department use
• Adults with serious mental illness or substance use disorder needs
• Adults living in the community at risk for institutionalization
• Adults nearing the end of a nursing facility stay who are ready to return to the community

“When a health plan builds a program like this, members need more than an eligible benefit — they need someone who gets them through the door,” said Patrick Regan, EVP of Sales of Upside. “CenCal Health knows its communities and its members. We bring the housing execution: Care Guides who carry each case from referral to move-in and follow up to make sure it holds. That fit is what makes a Community Supports program work, and it’s the model we want to grow with plans across California.”

Upside operates as a credentialed Community Supports Provider under the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) framework and follows DHCS documentation and reporting standards for each Housing Trio service. The CenCal Health partnership adds to Upside’s work with Medi-Cal plans in California and its broader footprint across Medicaid, Medicare Advantage, and employer-sponsored populations nationwide.

About CenCal Health

CenCal Health is the community-accountable health plan that administers Medi-Cal benefits in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Established in 1983 as the Santa Barbara Health Initiative, it was the nation’s first locally administered Medicaid program of its kind. Today, CenCal Health partners with a broad network of local physicians, hospitals, and other providers to serve more than 230,000 members — about one in four residents of Santa Barbara County and one in five residents of San Luis Obispo County. A public entity governed by a board appointed by both counties’ boards of supervisors, CenCal Health leads CalAIM implementation across its service area and also offers CenCal CareConnect, a Medicare Advantage plan for members eligible for both Medicare and Medi-Cal. For more information, visit www.cencalhealth.org.