PATH-Outreach

A large number of people with schizophrenia, bipolar illness, depression and other major mental illness experience episodic or cyclical homelessness. The reasons for this are varied, complex and strongly linked to historical shifts in the treatment and care of people who live with severe mental illness. Today, a significant majority of severely mentally ill people live in the community and not in state hospitals. Long term trends in social policy have gradually decreased options for affordable and subsidized housing erased economic supports and created a shortage of comprehensive community mental health care for the severely mentally ill. As a consequence it is not uncommon for someone with mental illness to become homeless, without support and sleeping on the street.

The Emergency Shelter of the Fox valley Street outreach Program is an important source of case management and support for a growing population of homeless people who have persistent and severe mental illness in our community. This population is difficult to serve, often not involved in psychiatric or therapeutic care and unable to function in traditional shelter services. As a result, many choose non-traditional, risky sleeping arrangements outdoors while they maintain distance from available supports.

With the award of our federal PATH grant, the Emergency Shelter of the Fox Valley employs a full-time street outreach case manager to assist people with these exhausting struggles, help them access safe shelter in the community, and link them to necessary mental health care. The ESFV Street Outreach case manager responds to community and professional referrals, visits with homeless people in the community who are not sheltered and conducts assessments in an effort to define paths toward stable housing and healthy living.

In each case we commit to helping people unravel their complex combination of homelessness, untreated mental illness, social isolation, family alienation and personal poverty. This effort to re-integrate people into the community can last months as we case manage them toward stability and self-sufficiency.

The financial needs for this program are tremendous. In each case we focus on providing the fundamental basic needs and resources to promote dignified and productive living. This includes: hygiene supplies, food, cooking supplies, clothing, laundry vouchers, bus passes, employment case management and debt relief. For many of these clients our commitment includes significant expenses for on-going rent support in the community, the purchase of mental health assessment, subsequent care and recommended medication.

The current economic conditions have added an unexpected layer of adversity for this population. The scarcity of employment options in combination with the increasing barriers to accessible and affordable health care prevent this population from securing the hope of a living wage and the relief of efficient mental health care. Jobs for people with fragile temperaments and low skill set are diminishing and it is not uncommon for someone to wait for 3 or more months to access relevant mental health services.

This has both inflated our costs of service and increased the number of referrals to this program. We are supporting people for longer periods of recovery and we are experiencing an increase in homeless clients with mental illness who, without our support, would be sleeping outdoors without support. This appears to be an unfortunate trend in our community without foreseeable changes.

This highly effective program continues to expand. Since January of this year we have conducted outreach visits with to over 300 people in the community, enrolled over 80 clients for on-going case management and support and allocated $42,000.00 in rental support alone. We look forward to building on our continued success with this program. With our emphasis on intensive case management and development of diversified housing programs such as Housing First we will continue to respond to the increasing prevalence of homelessness among the most vulnerable in our community.