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The Padavan Law and Group Home Placement
The term “Not in My Back Yard,” familiarized by the acronym NIMBY, held true with particular force in New York in the 1970’s with regard to group homes for the mentally ill. Towns, villages, and cities, often with misplaced and misinformed fears about the effect the mentally ill will have on...
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On the Shoulders of Giants: The Path to Building Supportive Housing
It was the summer of 1979, July 5th to be exact, the first day of my internship at Community Access. My job was to help run a pair of tenement buildings with 44 apartments that provided cheap homes to poor families and single men and women who had been recently discharged from state psychiatric...
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The Spectrum of Healing: Housing, Recovery, Learning, Working
First and foremost, Community Access is an organization that provides safe, stable housing for individuals with psychiatric disabilities and working families. We’ve always recognized the fundamental importance of putting roofs over heads, and of giving people the chance—for many, for the first...
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The Use of Harm Reduction in Housing Improves Critical Outcome Indicators in the SMI/CD Population
With the current changes in Medicaid reform about to take place, it has become more important than ever to produce measurable results in resource administration. The management of limited high cost Medicaid and or Medicaid support services is imperative as well. With the proposal from the New York...
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When Government Looks for Healthcare Savings, Supportive Housing Has the Answer
These days, it seems that on all levels of government, healthcare programs are being reexamined for cost savings, efficiencies and better outcomes. Nationally, healthcare reform and the Affordable Care Act will provide new opportunities to serve the most vulnerable populations and perhaps bend the...
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A Perspective on Mental Health Housing in New York State
What an accomplishment! In the past 25 years (I may be off by a year or two) the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) has supported the development of 30,000 residential units for persons who have serious mental illness. Development began with the establishment of congregate supervised...
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At EDCSPIN People Live In “Houses Like Mine”
Housing for People with illnesses, disorders and disabilities should reflect the community and be like their neighbors. The notion that people who require support, services and programs should live differently misses the point that they will benefit from inclusion, not exception. At EDCSPIN, our...
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Bringing It All Back Home: Housing Innovations and the NYS Medicaid Redesign Teams
Much discussion has occurred during the last few years on reducing the high health care cost and improving outcomes for people with a serious mental illness. These individuals use a disproportionate amount of care, much of which may be unnecessary or avoidable, and tragically die 25 years earlier...
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Housing…Then and Now
Over 20 years ago the Office of Mental Health awarded several agencies a contract to provide Supported Housing. Supported Housing created a housing program that provided permanent housing to individuals with a severe and persistent mental illness who could live independently in the community. That...
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Integrating Peer Wellness Services into Housing First
Since 1992, Pathways to Housing has provided individuals who experience homelessness and mental health conditions immediate access to permanent, independent housing and consumer-driven supports. As a Housing First agency, part of Pathways’ mission is to end homelessness; however, this is just the...
