Rallying for Better Housing

As personal care homes close in Philadelphia, advocates scramble to find housing for people with mental illness

by Susan Rogers
Behavioral Healthcare

Issue Date: April 2008

When Cambridge Retirement Community, a personal care home in South Philadelphia, announced that it would close its doors on February 24, 2008, the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania (MHASP) went into action: Its We C.A.R.E. advocacy project began working to find homes for every one of the Cambridge residents, the majority of whom have mental and/or physical disabilities.

We C.A.R.E. (Communicate, Assist, Respond and Engage) has been in this situation before: Over the past three years, Lisa Faulkner, who heads up the program, and her team have visited more than 50 personal care homes, have met more than 1,000 residents, and have helped relocate nearly 400 of these people during several closures. “What I have observed,” Faulkner said, “is that people with mental illnesses and other disabilities, as well as elderly people, are not getting the supports that they need and are entitled to. We need supportive housing for these individuals.”

Supportive housing, which promotes recovery from mental illness, is safe, decent, affordable housing with flexible supports—and no strings. Residents may hold a lease in their own name. They are not required to move as their needs evolve; instead, the program adjusts its services.

One such program, Housing First (http://www.pathwaystohousing.org), piloted in New York City, offers apartments to homeless people who have mental illnesses and who may have substance abuse problems, without requiring anyone to first become clean and sober. Replicated in some 150 cities around the country, the program has proved to be an effective and cost-conscious way to help people stabilize their lives. The program costs about $23,000 a year per person, compared to more than $40,000 a year for the use of emergency room treatment, detox, and the criminal justice systems—the kinds of public systems that homeless people often are involved in, and whom supportive housing could help.

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