Fellowship Place, One Supportive Community Fostering Mental Health - Ep.33

“Housing…employment…daytime structure. There needs to be something for people in between all those medical appointments in order to really have a positive meaningful life.” -  Guest Mary Guerrera, Exec. director 

After hospitalization - what? Many people with mental health issues, and their families, struggle to find answers to that question.

What would true support and community look like? What is possible?

Fellowship Place in New Haven, CT has the following mission statement:

Mission Statement

To serve adults living with mental illness by offering a full range of therapeutic support and rehabilitation services that promote independence, wellness, and a meaningful life.

Our guest today is Mary Guerrara, Executive Director of Fellowship Place.

Terms to know:

HUD = Housing and Urban Development

NAMI = National Alliance on Mental Illness

NIMBY = “not in my back yard” 

We ask:

1. What is Fellowship place? Mission and how you make it work .What is it like there? 
2. Your personal story - why do you do this work?
3. How is it funded?
4. How can someone get a placement?
5. What are the challenges? 
6. How can families help? -  ADVOCACY. Fight for research. etc.

Quotes: from Mary

“You can’t take no for an answer” 

“The most significant thing that I have found in my career is how you can't just rely on the government, you can't just rely on professionals, you really need a partnership.”

“Families can advocate for more funding to be able to develop projects that combine all of these elements:  affordability, support services, and a peer support network.”

“There needs to be something for people in between all those medical appointments in order to really have a positive meaningful life.”

Links: 

https://fellowshipplace.org/ 

Pathways:

https://pways.org/

Who Are the 3 Moms?

Want us to cover a topic? Ask us a question? Facebook page @Schizophrenia3Moms

Randye Kaye -Broadcaster, Actress, Voice Talent, Speaker, and Author (“Ben Behind his Voices”)

Miriam Feldman – Artist, Mom, Author “He Came in With It”

Mindy Greiling – member of the Minnesota House of Representatives for twenty years. Activist, Legislator, Author (“Fix What You Can“)

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to our podcast, Schizophrenia. Three Moms in the Trenches. From the place where schizophrenia and real life collide. East Coast, West Coast, Middle America. With Miriam Feldman, Mindy Gryling, and Randy Kaye. Welcome to episode 33 of Schizophrenia Three Moms in the Trenches. Guess what? It's our one-year anniversary, you guys. I saw that. Happy anniversary to us. Happy anniversary. Yay! This is one year, and we started season two six weeks ago just because we had 25 episodes, and episode 26 seemed like a good time to start season two. But we're we're still going to celebrate big when we get to episode 100. So I'm very excited about tonight because in so many of our shows in the past, one of the many, many issues that comes up is what happens to my loved one after they leave the hospital? Where do they live? How can they redo their life? And in a moment, we're going to bring in Mary Guerrera, who has an answer, not without challenges, as we'll find out, but an answer that I have personally toured. And even my son is very excited about, maybe someday taking a tour there. So we're going to be talking about Fellowship Place and its supportive community fostering mental health. So if we're looking a little bit for solutions, this is the episode about that. Coming up, by the way, in the next two episodes, we'll be talking to a young man named Ryan who has schizophrenia and contacted me having heard our podcast and said to me on his email and later on our phone chat hearing your podcast was the first time I understood what my illness has done to my family. And it's made me want to reach out. And so we are very excited that Ryan's going to come on the show next week and talk to us about what it feels like to have schizophrenia. He seems to be doing well. He's going for his master's, but he wants to tell us what it's like inside his head. And so that's very exciting. And after that, we'll be talking. Mindy, you want to say what the next episode is going to be about the next episode I'm excited about too.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

It's Sabah Muhammad, who leads a podcast for uh people of Black, Indigenous people of color. And that is, I'm sure, a lot of common issues and concerns that we all share, but with the lens of what goes on in those communities that makes it, I think, even harder to deal with mental illness. So she's she does this for the Treatment Advocacy Center that she works for. Got a chance to meet her uh three years ago before COVID. And uh she's a delightful young woman who I think everybody will learn from, including us.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Okay, great. So we have coming attractions. We'll also be talking to the author of a new book about parenting difficult children. A lot ahead. We're very, very excited. Also want to say that when I went onto our YouTube channel where we have 244 subscribers, I got this notice. It says, YouTube, new achievement. The new achievement is we have 5,000 views. Oh, wow. Wonderful. So 5,000 people have viewed something on our YouTube channel. And that, and it says, Looks like your videos are getting more attention. So we're excited about that. Whether you're listening or watching, we're so glad to have you with us. Please share, please subscribe, please tell your friends about it. We are getting close to 20,000 downloads as of five minutes ago. We were at 19,501. So yay! And welcome. So glad you're here. Mindy's gone on a cruise. Me, me, well, we we've had we've had some time. So seriously, 30-second update, just real, real quick. I'll start. We're doing okay. COVID has hit my son's group home. Fortunately, knockwood, they are quarantining the people who have it. And my son seems to be okay so far, and they're handling it quite well. But when the phone rang and I saw who it was, I'm like, oh no. And it was like, oh, it's only COVID. So it was like, just COVID, because anything else can go wrong when the phone rings. So that's my 30-second update. Mindy, you all survived the cruise or had a wonderful time.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

We survived the cruise, had a wonderful time, came back healthy. And the good news is our son, this is the first time we've left him since um he's been really sick. He survived taking care of the cat. He opted not to go with us. We wish he would have. But since he didn't, we're so glad that he survived while we were gone because he's had big episodes other times when we're gone. So I kind of had PTSD to leave him, and we all made it.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

And Mimi, how are things in your good caregiver now has COVID, so we're now propelled into all the thing with that. But he's doing well. And funny what you said about the phone call from his place. I got a phone call from Nick recently, a text when I was in LA, and it said, What's my address? And I looked at that and I thought, there's no way this is good. He's either in custody or he's ordering something ridiculous to be delivered to his apartment. Oh my god. And I shared it with the women that I was with. They didn't quite get it. I think mothers of sons with schizophrenia might get it better, but things are going well. Good.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Why did he need the address?

SPEAKER_03 5:31

He was trying to get pizza delivered.

unknown 5:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

At least it was called pizza being delivered. I love it. That's awesome. Okay, so now that we have our quick updates and Mary's been listening, so you've got to meet us a little bit. Mary, you know me. This is Mindy and Mimi. We each have sons with schizophrenia. We've each written books about schizophrenia. We each continue to advocate for our sons and for ourselves and for our families. And I've invited you on because so many of us, families of people with any mental illness, wonder what to do after the hospital. After the hospitalization, what? Where do you go if they don't live with the family or they can't live with the family or it's not a good idea to live with the family? What would true support and community look like? What is possible? And I have to say that when my book came out 10 years ago, one of one of my favorite bookings was getting to go to Fellowship Place in New Haven, Connecticut, and take a tour of what looked to me like heaven on earth. I could imagine my son being happy in a place like that. And it is one of the most well thought out and respectful housing communities that I've seen. And so I'm just delighted to have the executive director, Mary Guerrera, on to share the Fellowship Play story with us. Mary, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Thank you so much for being here. And it's really nice to hear about all of your success on YouTube. Congratulations. You're doing a great job getting the word out about mental health and what's working and what's not working and what we need more of.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

So thank you. Yes. So that's what we want to talk about, what we need more of. So I will just start by reading your mission statement straight off of your website, which is to serve adults living with mental illness by offering a full range of therapeutic support and rehabilitation services that promote independence, wellness, and a meaningful life. So Mindy's nodding her head, Mimi's nodding her head. So, you know, just I would like to know what Fellowship Place is. And also at some point, what drew you to this line of work? So tell us a bit about your history and Fellowship Place's history.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Well, I guess I'll start with my history. Um I am a licensed clinical social worker, and I have been in social work my entire professional life, right from undergraduate school up until now. And I've held a variety of positions. Um, you know, started out as a caseworker doing direct services, and then just, you know, as they say, worked my way up the ladder. Um the a lot of my early work was in child welfare and in preventive services, and I really became involved in community-based mental health, and in particular in working with people living with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia, um, back in 1990. And at that time, I met a pioneer, a really wonderful woman who was a mother who had a son with schizophrenia. Um, and she established an organization in Greenwich, Connecticut called Pathways. And um she overcame a lot of obstacles, as you can imagine, in Greenwich to try to open up a residence for people that were being discharged from the hospital. This was at the time when deinstitutionalization first started. Her name is Renee Bigler, and she does not take no for an answer. And um she overcame legal challenges, neighborhood challenges, NIMBY, all kinds of things to get this first group residence established in Greenwich. And she actually approached me about becoming the executive director of pathways, and I accepted, and you know, we grew the program pretty significantly from just one house to four houses, and then we added other programs as well. And the one thing that I learned about working with Renee Bigler and working in Greenwich was that you can't take no for an answer, and you really need the voice of parents and family members working together to overcome the stigma and the misinformation that's out there about mental illness. And after being at Pathways for about a decade and a half, I had the opportunity to come to New Haven, mostly because at that time Fellowship Place was at a transition where they were getting involved more in housing. And because of the experience that I had had developing housing in Greenwich, I think that they were, you know, very interested in bringing me on board at Fellowship Place. So that's how I got into it. A lot of similarities between Pathways and Fellowship Place. Again, because fellowship was like pathways, was started by essentially lay people, you know, people like you all. People who yeah, yeah, people who just saw a need, understood a little bit about mental illness. And just the most significant thing that I have found in my career is how you can't just rely on the government, you can't just rely on professionals, you really need a partnership between people on the ground who are actually, you know, dealing with mental illness in a very personal way every day to kind of like push the boundaries and advocate for what's needed from a very practical perspective. Because a lot of times, if you're just looking at the clinical providers, you know, they're looking at the clinical issues, the medical issues, government is looking at how to save money. You know, sometimes government and the medical profession is very rigid. So sometimes people like family members, people like you on the ground can help push the boundaries and have a really positive impact on how services are developed. And again, I've experienced that firsthand in my career, first at pathways and now at Fellowship Place.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Well I'd love to know, because I've seen it, but it's been a while. Tell us about the program. Tell us what would happen to someone like one of our sons if they wanted housing, how would they get in? And once they were in and there was a space, because we'll talk, I want to talk about the program, some success stories, and what challenges you're facing with funding and everything else. So let's talk. What's the program like? What do you offer?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Yeah. So first let me tell you what we don't offer. Because a lot of times when people think mental health, they think about psychiatrists, psychologists, medications, clinicians. So we don't provide any of those traditional clinical services. What we strive to do is to address all of the other aspects of a person's life that really present challenges for people living with a serious mental illness. So we have four core programs. We have a permanent supported housing program, which is comprised of four separate apartment buildings, all nearby to our main campus. And in those apartment buildings, we provide support services, casework services that help people be successful in housing. We do a lot of skill building, a lot of counseling about how to structure your day, what other things you might do besides just stay in your apartment, staring at four walls or looking at your computer. The rents in those four apartment buildings are all subsidized through project-based contracts that we have with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD, or the New Haven Housing Authority. So in the housing program, we're addressing two very basic needs that a lot of the people that we're talking about tonight have. One is they need affordable housing because most of them are living on fixed incomes from Social Security disability or some other government program. And secondly, in order to really be successful, they need support from somebody who can help them with the day-to-day. And thirdly, probably just as important, they need supportive neighbors. They need to be part of a community of an, you know, be part of a network. You know, a lot of times people that find apartments that are just random, you know, out there in the community somewhere run into problems because the other people in the apartment building think that they're odd or are afraid of them, or if they see them on the front porch talking to themselves, you know, they they just don't get it. Landlords get upset if the apartment's not kept up the way it's supposed to be kept up, or the way the landlord expects it to be kept up. But in a supported housing program like the ones that we operate, everybody in the building has been there, you know, and and maybe they're doing well now, but they remember when they weren't doing so well. So if somebody starts to have problems, they are oftentimes right there for the person who's not doing well, supporting them and helping them get through tough times. The casework staff is also there on a regular basis and is oftentimes the first person or persons to see that, hey, you know, this this person is starting to decompensate and we need to intervene. And then also with just the day-to-day stuff, making sure the apartment is clean, that the garbage is thrown out, um, that that people have meaningful positive things to do.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Tell us about the isn't there like a central sort of clubhouse thing?

SPEAKER_02 16:22

That was something that really But could I ask a question about the housing though, before we go on to the clubhouse? Because this is to me utopia. We always in Minnesota, which is the state I'm from, we have a lot of 90-day programs. We're really enamored with community care, but it really translates into often 90-day programs, and that's just a drop in the bucket. So, this permanent supportive housing that you have to me is you utopia for people with serious mental illness who just aren't doing well. You know, FYI, my son is in an apartment and he's mostly our house because he's lonesome there. But when you say permanent, does that mean lifelong? And then when you say HUD, it's not Section 8, it's kind of HUD housing we used to have, but that we don't have any, we don't get new HUD projects usually anymore. We have a couple that I know of, one really close to my house, but it's a form of housing that I don't think is uh being propagated. And I'd like to know if I'm accurate on that, this when it comes to Connecticut. And then why do you think it is that this is not the favored model when so many people like our sons need it?

SPEAKER_00 17:33

So those are both really good questions. And yes, our housing is considered permanent. So people can be there a year, they could be there 20 years. In fact, I have a couple of residents that have been in our building for 20 years. All of the residents have a lease and they have to abide by the terms of the lease. But as long as they do that, they can be there as long as they want or as short a time as they want. So it's there's a lot of choice there. In the last several years, there has been a move away at the HUD level from site-based housing like ours. So the funding that helped us create some of the buildings that we created in Greenwich and that we have at my agency here in New Haven, it's not really there anymore. So it's hard to build new housing like what we've got now. The move really has been more towards vouchers that people can use to rent apartments, you know, anywhere that has an opening and the landlord will rent to them. So one of the things that I was going to throw out to all of you, because you're interested in advocacy, is to advocate for more funding to be able to develop projects that combine all of the elements that I talked about affordability, support services, and a peer support network. Why? Because I think they've moved away from that. Well, because it's expensive. One of the projects that I developed here in New Haven is an 18-unit apartment building. It was a pretty old decrepit building that we were able to purchase, but we had to do like a total renovation to create the 18 units that we have. And it cost about three and a half million dollars to do that. And where did that money come from? It was HUD money. It wasn't it was through a program called, it was a Section 811 program. I did two Section 811s in Greenwich and then a Section 811 here in New Haven, but there are no more Section 811 dollars out there. But I think it's a model that works. I think it works a lot better than having people in scattered sites in apartments where you know they may have friendly neighbors and they may not.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

I mean, that is the thing that totally agree.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Yeah. When you say peer support system, that is the thing that opens my heart to that. When I toured fellowship place 10 years ago now, I don't know if this is still there, but I remember a clubhouse. I remember a pool table, I remember people coming in and, you know, people smoking, you know, I don't love it, but people smoke, having someone to have a cigarette with in front of the clubhouse. I remember a cafeteria. I don't know if that's still there, where people could learn skills. And I know when my son left his group home 10 years ago and was promoted to his own apartment, it was a disaster. It was exactly like what you said. The neighbors thought he was weird, his bicycle got stolen, there were bed bugs. I mean, he was paying his his bill, but he had no, he was lonely. He was so lonely. He didn't, I mean, luckily he was he was doing his best. He was trying to go to school, he was working part-time, he was going to uh anonymous meetings, but it was a terrible experience. And I think the loneliness had a lot to do with him refusing his meds and eventually getting hospitalized again. And when I saw what you had there with yoga classes and when there was a ceiling filled with artwork, I remember that that people it's all still there, Randy.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

It's still there.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

So for my son to have the option to not cook his own lunch and go down to the cafeteria and break bread with somebody else, that was just something I'm like, that's we want that. So uh tell us about the clubhouse, tell us about you know, all of those. Things and then you know how hard is it to get a bed?

SPEAKER_00 22:03

So, so we all have basic needs, right? Um, think about you know your own life and what's important to you and what makes your life meaningful. And you know, most people, if you ask those questions, will say, My family, my friends, my hobbies, my job. Um, and people who are living with a serious mental illness have all of those same needs. And the purpose of our clubhouse program is to help people fulfill those needs in a very non-judgmental, not low demand, um, very warm, nurturing environment. And what's really special and I think perfect about the clubhouse is that it's open seven days a week. It's open from early morning till till late at night. It was open on Christmas, it was open on New Year's Eve. So people can always come in and find other people that are going through the same kinds of challenges that they're going through to just kind of sometimes people will just sit next to each other and never exchange a word, but it's okay because at least you know there's other people around. And we have a variety of different activities in the clubhouse. There's really something for everybody. Probably one of the most popular things is our expressive arts program. So we've got a variety of different levels of art classes and art groups that people can participate in. We have a writer's group where people get together and they write poetry, they write essays, and then once every three or four months they publish a literary journal that's made up of all of the work that they've done. We also have a music group that has morphed into a band called the Ships, and the Ships perform at all of our special events. They did a great job at our holiday party last month. And again, these are just things that help people feel like they're a part of something, that they have something that they can enjoy. We also have a dance group that meets once a week and it's exercise, it's dancing, it's socializing. But for a lot of people, it also helps them concentrate because, in order to be able to learn the new dance steps, they really have to pay attention, they need to be able to concentrate. And as you know, for a lot of people with mental illness and especially schizophrenia, they have a hard time with organizing their thoughts. And we find that with the dance group, if they really want to learn the dances, they've really got to pay attention and it's it's great. But we have yoga, we have exercise, we have cooking classes, we've got movie nights, we've got current events, um, all kinds of discussion groups, and then we have more clinically oriented groups as well. We have a group about hearing voices, we have groups about building healthy, positive relationships. Um, so there's really something for everyone. And what's really, really outstanding about the clubhouse model as opposed to a medical model, you know, an IOP program or a day treatment program at a hospital or a clinic is that people can come in and say, you know what, I don't really want to do anything. I'm just gonna come and hang out, and that's fine, no pressure. Or they can come in and look at our program calendar and say, Well, you know, yeah, I hear voices. I think I should go to the hearing voices group, or, you know, I like to play the guitar. Do you think I could go to music groups? So they get to choose what they're gonna do, when they're gonna do it, and how they're gonna do it. And if they really just want to come and sit, that's okay too. And, you know, we really feel that having them come in, and even if they're just sitting and observing, eventually something's gonna click and they're gonna get involved in something.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

We had international clubhouse executive director on for one of our guests that Randy invited him recently. And is your clubhouse a certified clubhouse international clubhouse or not?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Yeah, no, so we've we we really we've taken what we consider the best from the clubhouse model and added other things. So, you know, there's some similar, we're not a certified clubhouse, and we we've borrowed some of their ideas, but not all. We've added a lot of our our own stuff, in particular, some of the clinical groups that we run are not groups that you would probably find in your typical clubhouse, but we have found that they're very, very helpful for people that are at that at that stage in their recovery.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

So I this and I use the word clubhouse, but it wasn't like an official, it's sort of a central gathering place.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

You know what we you know what we call it? We call it um a social rehab center. That's like the official name, and then the unofficial name is the clubhouse.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Gotcha. But it's only for people in your housing, right? Only for residents. No.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Um, so it is open to everybody who lives in our apartments, but it's also open to people that are living with family members, living in their own apartments somewhere in the greater New Haven area. We also take people from group homes and transitional housing. So it's really open to anyone in the greater New Haven area who is, you know, living with a mental illness. And it's it's really any mental illness. So we have um many people, of course, who who have schizophrenia, but we also have a lot of people with substance abuse issues, post-traumatic stress issues, anxiety disorders. So um it's really open to a broad range of people. And we probably see in any given day about 120 to 150 people. That's dropped off a lot, of course, in the last couple of years because of COVID, but those are really our pre-COVID numbers. And people, some people come and they stay for breakfast and they don't leave until after dinner. And some people just come for particular groups or activities that they want to participate in. Some people just spend the afternoons with us. It really is, it runs the gamut. And we do a lot to try to help people get to know the community and get involved in the community so that they're not just always at our clubhouse. So we have a volunteer group. Well, we have several volunteer groups where one of our peer support specialists will has set up these group volunteer activities, and people can sign up to be a part of one of those groups. And um they do work at an animal shelter, they help pack meals at the downtown soup kitchen. What else? There was one other. Oh, the Yale Sustainable Garden. That's a garden at Yale University. So again, this is a way for people to give back to the community and to be a part of not only the fellowship community, but the broader community as well. Which, you know, again, a lot of our um our folks have a problem with that because they tend to isolate, their social skills aren't great. And you know, we try to help improve their lives in those areas, you know, and and we we say we have a lot of fun, but we have fun with a purpose. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

I'm watching Mimi's face and I know she wants to talk, so go ahead. Me?

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Yeah. Well, I just I mean, I may be jumping ahead here, but I mean the obvious question is how can we have this in every state? I mean, why is this? This is what we need everywhere. This is and why did this happen here and not elsewhere? And how do we do it? I mean, this is what we need.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

So a lot of it has to do with um funding and advocacy. You know, when I hear politicians talk about mental health reform and investing more money in mental health dollars, they are typically referring to more hospital beds, more outpatient clinics, all of the medical model kinds of services. And we need all of those services. However, as you all know, and in your you know more than anybody else because you're living it every day with your sons and daughters, there needs to be something for people in between all of those medical appointments. Because in order to really have a positive, meaningful life, it's not just seeing your doctor once a month or once every couple of months. It's not just taking medication. You need a lot more, and that's where places like Fellowship Place come in. We are addressing all of the challenges and issues that people living with mental illness have that are not really addressed by the psychiatric community. And probably the psychiatric community is not in the best position to address those issues. Housing, employment, daytime structure. Those things are really, really important, but they don't really come under the medical model. And I think that there needs to be a lot more advocacy and community awareness about the whole gamut of things that people living with mental illness need to really have positive, healthy lives, that it's not just the medical stuff. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

What advocacy groups are helping you the most? Are there any groups you could name? Does NAMI helpful with this advocacy?

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Uh NAMI is helpful, but I also think that parents are very, very helpful. The consumers themselves are very helpful. We try to get our consumers involved in letter writing campaigns and testimony in front of the legislature to talk about what really has helped them in their recovery. And, you know, oftentimes people will say, oh, you know, I take my medication and that's really helped me. But what really stands out when you talk with the person in recovery is what's helped them is having a place to go to every day, having a decent place to live, having good friends that I can talk to at 10 o'clock at night if I'm feeling anxious or I'm starting to hear voices. Those things really, really stand out. Having a job, even if it's just a volunteer job or a part-time job, that is very, very meaningful. So that's what we need more of. We need to expand the way we think of mental health and mental health services. It's not just the clinical stuff, it's a lot of these non-traditional kinds of things that we do at Fellowship Place that I think can really make a difference. And in the long run, these non-traditional things help the whole community because you're you see people are going to go less back and forth in the hospital, they're going to have um fewer relapses, and in the end, that's that's that's good for all of us.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

And happier lives.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

One more thing I wanted to say, and and it, you know, the the investment in mental health services varies from state to state. In Connecticut, we're very, very fortunate. We have a, it could be better, there's always room for improvement. But I think that the state has done a pretty good job of investing in community-based services like the ones we have at Fellowship Place. And our budget at Fellowship Place is about $3 million a year. About 75% of that budget does come from the state of Connecticut. And we have to raise the rest privately. And we do that through annual appeals, special events, foundation writing. But you know, the state, at least here in Connecticut, is our biggest funding source.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

That's good to know. I want to know as a parent, even though it's not a medical model, is there support for my tongue, my son taking his meds every day? And how long is your waiting list for a bed?

SPEAKER_02 35:09

That's the question I Mimi asked earlier, and I'm waiting to hear the answer.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

And I'm Yeah, so there is a waiting list in all of our housing. Um, because it is permanent housing, we don't have a lot of turnover. And last year we filled a vacancy in um our Section 811 project, which is our newest project. That project opened up in 2010. And with and we only have 18 units in the project. And within just a day or so of taking applications, we had enough applications for probably three buildings. And last year, when we filled that vacancy, right around this time of year last year, the person who got the vacant unit was someone that had actually been waiting since we first started taking applications back in 2010.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

Oh, so my my conclusion there that you said Connecticut does a pretty good job. But you know, this is what I find in all states that I know anything about, and that is, including Minnesota. We say we're doing a good job because we have a little of this, a little of that, a little of that. But when you look at the waiting list, I don't think any state is doing a good job, uh, including Connecticut, if you have somebody that waited 10 years to get in or more. We do a good job with what we have, but people can't get into these places.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

And as I said, you know, the there isn't a lot of money to develop new housing. And I think, you know, one of the biggest challenges is that um there isn't that money to develop new housing. And that's uh a very important advocacy point that people need to make. Programs have waiting lists, it's considered permanent housing, which means there isn't going to be a lot of turnover. So we really need um, you know, more dollars made available on the federal level.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

Right. They're the ones that have really dropped the ball. The states, Minnesota's doing a really good job with affordable housing. But the federal government, you know, since the Great Society has given up on this for some reason. We can't get Section Eight, we don't get HUD money anymore. I mean, what has happened to our federal government? That's where the advocacy is really falling short.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

And that that we could talk a half an hour about that. And I just want to tell you. Please no, I want because we have five minutes left, and I want to hear the points you want to make because we want to know how how families can help. And I'm I'm also just curious, just real quickly, going back to my first question, is there support for taking medication daily or a place where someone like okay, so that's part of so we we certainly encourage people to take medication.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

We cannot require them to take medication, but we provide prompts about taking medication, we provide education about why taking their medication is important. And we, if someone really needs someone to be there and administer the meds for anyone, we will um work with visiting nurses who will come in to the apartments and help with that. We also have visiting nurses that come to the clubhouse and um, you know, make sure that people take their medication, especially for people that are early risers and get to the clubhouse really early. The nurses will actually come to the clubhouse and do medications at the clubhouse. So that's how we handle the medications. I do want to tell you that in addition to the clubhouse and housing, we have career services, we have employment programs and education programs for those individuals that are ready to think about going back to school or getting a job. And um the last program is probably the program that's growing the most these days, believe it or not, is our homeless drop-in program. So, you know, you know, and everyone should know that you know, an overwhelming majority of the people who are homeless have a mental illness. You know, the folks that we see out on the streets tend to be people that suffer from a serious mental illness, are disconnected from family, disconnected from services, um, and are living on the streets. So we have a daytime drop-in program where homeless people can come in and take care of their basic needs, like showers, food, laundry. Um, and then we have counselors who are available to engage them and help connect them with other services when they're ready, whether it be psychiatric care, medical care, housing, you know, whatever. So I think in lately in the last couple of years, we've really seen a big increase in the number of people coming to the homeless drop-in program. And many of them are in denial about their mental illness or their substance abuse problem, but it's pretty obvious when um the intake person assesses their situation that even though they may be denying a problem, that they have one.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Yeah, something we've discussed a lot. Mimi, I'm gonna throw the last question to you if you have one.

SPEAKER_03 40:36

I've had people, you know, people reach out to me all the time. And I know a couple of people in particular who have said, you know, who wanted to do this, parents who are fed up and frustrated. And I I know a particular woman in California who's been trying for a long time. She just said, okay, let's just find 10 parents who can afford to do this and buy an apartment building and do this ourselves. But it's a very difficult thing to do on your own. Because, first of all, you know, this woman had a lot of resources. Most people are not going to be able to kick in a bunch of money to buy an apartment building. Is there any sort of map or guidebook where it's, you know, how do we learn how to get this going in other places? Because obviously this is what we need.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Yeah, I have to say that you should really maybe think about at some point getting Renee Bigler on, because Renee Bigler, you know, of course, had resources. She had friends with resources, but she can and should write the guidebook. And if you talk to her, tell her I'll help her write the guidebook. But she bought a building to develop it into housing for um people with mental illness, immediately ran into a lot of NIMBY problems, but she stuck with it and overcame legal challenges and put together a nice group of professionals and friends to grow her agency. Renee's primary interest was always housing. As the agency in Greenwich grew, you know, other things were added, but her primary interest was always housing, and she she can really write the guidebook. She was doing permanent affordable housing for people with mental illness before any of the government or other policy folks even knew what it was. So Renee didn't know the name, she didn't know the name permanent supported housing. She didn't make that, she didn't make that up. She just knew that people needed a decent place to live. And she worked hard to get her programs off the ground. She is really a remarkable woman, tough, but accomplished a lot. I learned a lot from her. But we will definitely reach out to her.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

We definitely will. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone. I want to know where people can send money to you. Or I'll take it. Any any links, obviously, I'm going to put your fellowshipplace.org. That'll be in the in the show description. But in case someone's not reading the show description, tell us any links for more information. Um, anything you'd like us to know in the last minutes.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Yeah, so our website is www.fellowshipplace.org. There is a donation page on the website, so you can just click on donation if you'd like to support what we're doing. Again, advocacy is so important, raising awareness is so important. In addition to housing and making sure that the right kind of housing is available, I think to push the politicians and the medical community to think about mental health more broadly, not just in terms of the medical model is important. And also to push research around how to help people who are suffering from serious mental illness and especially schizophrenia develop more insight. It's that inability to develop insight that really stands in the way sometimes of people taking medication and following through with treatment. And I think we need to come up with more psychosocial interventions that will help build on insight.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Wow. Those are all very, very important issues. We have had um Javier Amador on talking about anasygnosia and a lot of these issues, but you have presented us with possibility, and that is so important. And I thank you so much for coming on. Any other last words, Mimi or Mindy, other than a thank you? Just thank you.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

I will say thank you. Thank you very much for giving us a goal that we can work for in all of our states.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

It was a pleasure to be on. I I really um am grateful for the time to talk about what we do, and hopefully our paths will cross again. And um, I'd be happy to come back anytime.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Hey, thanks for joining us for this episode of Schizophrenia Three Moms in the Trenches with Randy K, Mindy Gryling, and Miriam Feldman. To get in touch with us or to learn more about our books, please visit our websites at MiriamHyfenfeldman.com, mindygryling.com, or randyk.com.