MAKING A DIFFERENCE : One Agency’s Approach: Home Life For the Homeless Mentally Ill

At least 25,000 homeless mentally ill people live on the streets of Los Angeles County. A small but comprehensive program, A Community of Friends, is making a dent by applying all kinds of housing expertise, from design to financing to community relations.

BACKGROUND

A Community Friends, a nonprofit development group active since 1989, acts as a partner with local mental health agencies to create permanent, affordable housing buttressed by the social services needed to monitor and support mentally ill residents. A Community of Friends acts as the housing expert while the mental health agency acts as the social service expert. The resulting “service-enhanced” housing emphasizes the contributions residents can make to develop and maintain independent living skills. Forty residents at two sites, paying monthly rents up to $325, are living in units developed by these partnerships; 210 more units at five sites are slated to be available by 1994.

A Community of Friends’ contributions (as housing developer-owner, co-owner or consultant):

Site location

Neighborhood outreach and education

Regulatory and governmental negotiation

Construction bidding

Property restoration

Real estate finance

Contract supervision

Loan packaging

Architectural design

Service provider contributions:

Counseling

Vocational training

Job placement

Money management instruction

Substance abuse treatment

Crisis intervention

Residents’ contributions:

As able, work or attend school

Take medication as prescribed

Maintain and care for living areas

Manage money

Remain drug free

Participate in their case management

QUOTES

ROBERT SANBORN / Executive Director, A Community of Friends

Our staff has expertise in business administration, architecture, planning and mental health care. You have to show a bank or private investor your ability to understand the complex issues of real estate finance. You have to demonstrate that you know how to work through the levels of public and private financing. We’re able to do that.

The challenge of our work is the strong opposition many residents have about living next to adults with disabilities.

The crisis upon us is that we have a lack of housing coupled with intolerance which then manufactures terrible images of individuals who are in desperate need of stability. We have to break that down.

JULIE ELDER / Residential Program Coordinator, Community Integration Portals, service provider for A Community of Friends-developed Orbison House

A Community of Friends takes care of the facility, for example, collecting rent and doing administrative work. My staff and I are free to work with residents and their case management. We’re a psycho-social rehabilitation agency. We teach people how to live independently. That’s our area of expertise. We aren’t really property managers. A Community of Friends handles the facility, and we are free to provide the services--what we do best.”

RON FERGUSON / Resident of Selby Hotel, developed by A Community of Friends

I’m responsible for myself here (but) it’s not like we’re out in the dark without help. The feeling of independence is most important--that we’re making our own decisions and that we’re responsbile for the upkeep of our home, shopping and keeping a budget. At a board-and-care (facility) it’s really structured. You’re not able to think for yourself in that setting. Here you have to think. I have to be responsible. I’m accountable.

I’ve never had a phone. It’s hard to explain to someone who has always had these things, but for someone who’s never had this it’s important. I have cable, a phone. I even enjoy paying the bills.