Our supportive apartment building in Milwaukee is a model for expanding affordable housing options.

Freda doesn't just have a place to live now. She has a home. She's decorated her efficiency apartment in Prairie Apartments with curtains on the windows and family photos on the walls and made friends with other residents, including one gentleman who helps her keep in touch with family members via email in the building's computer room. "It's nice and quiet here and secure," she says. "The decoration is very nice; the furniture. I just love it."

Opened in February, Prairie Apartments is a new supportive housing development in Milwaukee, built from Heartland Alliance's well-tested model in Chicago. Freda had been living in a homeless shelter before moving to her apartment in the spring. She had saved $1,800 from her assembly job at a local factory, but she was unable to find a place she could afford on her pay.

The 24 units at Prairie Apartments house both low-income residents who have experienced homelessness and residents with mental illness who can live independently with access to some support services. Onsite staff provide counseling support and can connect residents to health care job training programs, and benefit assistance.

With a desperate need for better housing options, county and city officials in Milwaukee looked to Heartland Alliance's nearly 20 years of experience in the field to build Prairie Apartments. In Chicago, services for our supportive housing developments are provided by Heartland Alliance's other divisions; at Prairie Apartments, we've created a new model, with services from a local agency.

"This is a replicable pilot that allows Heartland Alliance to take our expertise outside of Chicago," says Michael Goldberg, Heartland Alliance's director of real estate development. "We're talking with communities in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois. We can really expand our capacity to open up doors to new opportunities for people."