MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The legislative Contract Review Committee approved a $500,000 contract Thursday for the Alabama Department of Mental Health to promote and increase affordable housing options for residents with mental health needs, largely those who are homeless or temporarily incarcerated.
The contract was awarded to Navigate Affordable Housing Partners, a Birmingham-based nonprofit organization that works to improve access to affordable housing for underserved communities. The contract’s duration will be through Sept. 30, 2026, and will be funded by an even split of federal and state funds.
The money will be used to increase the pool of available housing; it won’t pay for rent.
“The contractor will provide performance-based professional services to secure, promote, increase, and facilitate statewide affordable supportive housing options for those with mental health problems who are homeless, in jails and in emergency departments,” said Bryan Penn, department privacy officer for ADMH.
The contract will also see Navigate Affordable Housing Partners actively seek out subsidies and rental resources to increase the state’s affordable housing supply for those with mental health needs, and will do so through facilitating sustained partnerships between state agencies and third parties.
“I have some questions,” said Sen. Dan Roberts, R-Mountain Brook, the chair of the Contract Review Committee. “So this would get someone in drug rehab, if they needed that, (in) a halfway house? I read your explanation, I just… it’s a huge task.”
Penn suggested that under the contract, Navigate Affordable Housing Partners’ work would largely center around streamlining Alabama’s existing affordable housing resources between different state agencies.
“Housing could be a halfway house, it could be an apartment, it could be more than likely something that other agencies are involved with,” Penn said.
Malissa Valdes, spokesperson for ADMH, told Alabama Daily News that the full contract was not immediately available, but could be produced in full within a matter of days.
Alabama lawmakers and leaders have strongly advocated for improving the state’s mental health resources in recent years. State House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, said expanding mental health resources was among his top legislative priorities in 2024, and again in December at the Association of County Commissions of Alabama’s legislative conference in Montgomery.
A poll published in 2024 by the polling and research firm Cygnal found that a majority of Alabamians held a poor perception of both the quality and accessibility of mental health resources in the state, and that a majority also indicated they would be in favor of more state dollars being directed toward improving those resources.
Navigate Affordable Housing Partners was originally incorporated in 1980 as the Jefferson County Assisted Housing Corporation, and was established to pursue funding under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section 8 New Construction Program. The organization has worked with ADMH in the past, receiving $31,250 from a state grant in 2024 according to data from the Alabama Department of Finance.