|
Federal grant
will help Rhode Island’s homeless
(February
2008 Issue)
By Pamela Berard
A Rhode Island community service provider will use a $507,500 federal
grant to provide services - and housing - to mentally ill homeless
people in the state.
Riverwood Mental Health Services of Warren will provide case management
services over the next two years to 125 homeless state residents
with mental illness and rented apartments for 40 of them.
The state Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals
selected the nonprofit for the PATH (Projects for the Assistance
in Transition from Homelessness) grant. One of the goals of the
program is that once a person has a home, he or she is in a better
position to take advantage of treatment programs.
The PATH initiative will be modeled after a pilot program Riverwood
began in 2005 called Housing First RI, which provides 65 formerly
homeless people with housing. It has had an 80 percent retention
rate and succeeded at one of its goals - less utilization of public
services, says Daniel Kubas-Meyer, Riverwood's executive director,
citing an independent evaluation of the program.
Already, Housing First RI has led to a more than $9,000 annual
public service savings for each individual in the program. Kubas-Meyer
says that in the year before entering Housing First, clients used
more than $31,000 annually in public services. Once in the program,
that figure dropped to $7,600. Combined with program costs of about
$9,500 and a housing subsidiary of $5,600, that's a savings of about
$9,000 annually per person.
Among the decrease in public services, clients went from 534 hospital
overnight visits down to 149; from 73 mental health overnights to
16; and 919 jail overnights to 149.
"So the point is, if you do absolutely nothing (for the client),
you're going to spend $31,000," says Kubas-Meyer. "If you provide
this program, you not only improve the quality of life for these
people, but you save the taxpayer $9,000" per individual in the
program.
To participate in Housing First or the PATH program, a person must
be chronically homeless. An additional stipulation with the PATH
grant is that a person must have a serious, persistent mental illness.
"What we found is that when you are dealing with the chronic homeless
population, anywhere between 50-60 percent already meets those
criteria," Kubas-Meyer says.
There are no requirements for a person to be in treatment or in
programs or even be sober, Kubas-Meyer says. They just have to conform
to the rules of a standard lease (not destroy property, not do anything
illegal, etc.)
"What's exciting about it is not only does it work but it really
does reinforce what we had hoped, that folks just need the opportunity.
Once given the opportunity, they are growing and prospering," Kubas-Meyer
says. "You've got to have shelter before you focus on other aspects
of their life. Once you have shelter, they move on and get help
with the other issues that have been facing them."
Although the program doesn't require a person seek treatment, it
is made available, and "we find that nearly everybody takes advantage
of the programs we are offering," he says.
"We are finding that folks are not just appreciating it but they
are doing what they need to do to keep their housing."
The contract for the PATH grant went into effect in December, Kubas-Meyer
says, and the organization is in the process of hiring staff. Then,
throughout 2008, they will start working clients into the programs
at a rate of about 12 per month. Residents will live in subsidized
housing in the Providence area.
|
