Sam Tsemberis

Sam J. Tsemberis (born March 11, 1949, in Skoúra, Lakonia, Greece) is a Greek Canadian clinical and community psychology practitioner, and the founder of Housing First and the CEO of the Pathways Housing First Institute.^[1] Dr. Tsemberis also founded Pathways to Housing organization in NY in 1992 and later founded Pathways to Housing organizations in DC, PA, and VT. In 2018, he founded the Pathways Housing First Institute in California to provide education, consultation, and training to agencies, cities, states, and countries seeking to implement Housing First.^[1] He is also an Associate Clinical Professor in Psychiatry and Bio-behavioral Sciences at the University of Los Angeles California.^[2] In 2024, Dr. Tsemberis was recognized as a TIME100^[3] for creating the Housing First model which "has changed the lives of tens of thousands of people and is influencing policy in cities across the U.S. and the world—from Houston to Helsinki. By treating housing as a basic human right, Sam demonstrated that leading with humanity is the most effective path to ending homelessness."^[3]

Sam Tsemberis
Sam Tsemberis in 2024
Born	(1949-03-11) March 11, 1949 (age 76) Skoúra, Greece
Education	New York University PhD, Clinical and Community Psychology
Occupation(s)	Clinical and Community Psychologist | Clinical Community psychology
Website	https://www.pathwayshousingfirst.org/

Pathway Housing First

Main article: Pathways to Housing

Pathways to Housing is credited with originating the Housing First model in the United States.^[3] Tsemberis and homeless consumers first developed a consumer‑run drop‑in centre for people experiencing homelessness and mental illness, and then created the Pathways to Housing program that came to be known as Housing First.^[4] Initial evaluations found the program more effective at helping people leave the streets and remain housed than the citywide average for programs funded under the same city–state agreement to provide housing for people with serious mental illness and chronic homelessness.^[5] A subsequent randomized controlled trial compared the Pathways model with the prevailing approach, which placed individuals in “appropriate” housing linked to treatment programs and stepped them toward more autonomous settings based on cooperation and treatment outcomes.

The Pathways model was substantially more successful—participants assigned to Pathways spent, on average, 99 fewer days homeless in the first year than the control group—and this advantage persisted over the full four‑year study period. The model was also more cost‑effective, largely because of reduced psychiatric hospitalisations.^[6]

By 2010, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) advocated Housing First in its strategic plan and stated: “Housing First is a proven method of ending all types of homelessness and is the most effective approach to ending chronic homelessness.”^[7] The Mental Health Commission of Canada tested Housing First in five cities using randomised trials and found that, in the first year, participants spent more than twice as much time in stable housing as those in the control group; the model has since spread to Europe.^[8][9]

According to the Pathways to Housing website, the model has been included in over 300 cities’ 10‑year plans to end homelessness and is credited with reducing homelessness among adults with serious mental illness.^[10] Variation in implementation fidelity has been noted, prompting Tsemberis to rebrand the approach as “Pathway Housing First” and to publish a manual to support adoption of the model’s core principles, such as consumer choice.^[11]

Tsemberis co‑authored, with Deborah Padgett and Benjamin Henwood, Housing First: Ending Homelessness, Changing Systems and Transforming Lives^[12] (2016, Oxford University Press), which documents the rise of the approach and evidence of its efficacy.^[13] In 2017, the book received an Honourable Mention in the Book Award category from the Society for Social Work and Research.^[14]

In 2018, Tsemberis visited Dublin to support the roll‑out of Housing First in Ireland.^[15] He was a listed speaker at the 2019 Housing First Scotland Conference^[16] and at the Mayor’s Summit on Homelessness in Amarillo in July 2019.^[17]