Long-Term Supportive Housing is Associated with Decreased Risk for New HIV Diagnoses Among a Large Cohort of Homeless Persons in New York City

It is unknown whether providing housing to persons experiencing homelessness decreases HIV risk. Housing, including access to preventive services and counseling, might provide a period of transition for persons with HIV risk factors. We assessed whether the new HIV diagnosis rate was associated with duration of supportive housing. We linked data from a cohort of 21,689 persons without a previous HIV diagnosis who applied to a supportive housing program in New York City (NYC) during 2007–2013 to the NYC HIV surveillance registry. We used time-dependent Cox modeling to compare new HIV diagnoses among recipients of supportive housing (defined a priori, for program evaluation purposes, as persons who spent > 7 days in supportive housing; n = 6447) and unplaced applicants (remainder of cohort), after balancing the groups on baseline characteristics with propensity score weights. Compared with unplaced applicants, persons who received ≥ 3 continuous years of supportive housing had decreased risk for new HIV diagnosis (HR 0.10; CI 0.01–0.99). Risk of new HIV diagnosis decreased with longer duration placement in supportive housing. Supportive housing might aid in primary HIV prevention.