Ricardo, Home at Last - Center for Urban Community Services

IN SERVICE
A Publication of the Center for Urban Community Services
Spring 2011
Ricardo, Home at Last
Ricardo Gonzalez was born and
raised in Puerto Rico. At the age of
12 he was introduced to cocaine, a
drug that would control his life for
the next 30 years.
When he was 21, Ricardo took his
belongings and limited savings and
moved to New York City, where he
found an apartment in Queens and
work as a cook. Cooking has been a
passion of Ricardo’s for as long as he
can remember, and he felt fortunate
to be able to make money doing
something he loves. Nonetheless,
he continued to use cocaine, a habit
he managed to hide from those
around him.
Looking back, Ricardo says “I
made everyone believe I had
everything under control. No one
knew that I actually had nothing
under control.”
Over the years he began using
more cocaine, an addiction that
contributed to the loss of his
apartment, though he continued
to work. Because he was spending
all his money on drugs, he slept
on friends’ couches, jumping from
house to house. He managed to
keep himself well-clothed, making it
easier to hide his problem.
(continued on page 2)
Lenniger Residences - Good for Bronx Residents, the
Local Neighborhood and the Environment
CUCS is nearing the halfway point in
the construction of the Sister Barbara
Lenniger Residences, a new housing
initiative that will provide 92 units
Architect’s Rendering of Lenniger Residences
of affordable housing with services
available on-site for homeless and
low income individuals and families.
Named after Sister Barbara Lenniger,
a long-time advocate for homeless
and low income families, CUCS’
newest initiative will have a concrete
impact on the twin challenges
of ending homelessness and
ensuring affordable housing for low
income New Yorkers. The Lenniger
Residences will include studios and
one, two and three-bedroom units
for homeless and very low income
individuals and families.
Adina Barbosa, CUCS Associate
Director, said “the mix of
individuals and families will create
an environment similar to other
apartment buildings throughout the
(continued on page 4)

Ricardo, Home at Last - continued
Eventually, however, he lost all
semblance of control and exhausted
his welcome among friends. He
stopped jumping from house to house
and moved under a bridge on the
East River in Harlem. Embarrassed
and withdrawn, Ricardo shunned all
interaction, felt a sense of loss, and
didn’t know how to cope. Struggling to
maintain his drug habit, he moved to
the Harlem River Park in East Harlem.
This became his home for the next 14
months.
In April, 2010, while sitting on a park
bench, he met Jerome Bivens from
CUCS’ Street to Home Program. For
the next two months, Jerome and the
outreach team continually worked to
find Ricardo and talk to him about the
help CUCS could offer him. Ricardo felt
that Jerome and the outreach team
worked really hard to stay with him,
“they were everywhere”, he explains.
He began to look forward to seeing
them and even began to seek them
out. He finally accepted the offer
of help and explains his decision as
“I believed in life and God and was
convinced if I could believe in myself, I
could have a better life.”
Jerome got Ricardo a room at the
Harlem YMCA. After a month and
a half Ricardo received a call from
CUCS telling him there was an
opening at CUCS’ Kelly Transitional
Living Community, a transitional
housing program for chronically
homeless adults. At the Kelly, Ricardo
worked with his case manager,
Allison Wiltshire, who he says is
really knowledgeable and was able
to connect him with the services he
needed. They worked together to
address his addiction to cocaine.
Ricardo began working with Dr.
Joanna Fried, a Psychiatrist from CUCS’
Project for Psychiatric Outreach to the
Homeless (PPOH). As they worked to
develop a personalized plan for his
recovery. Ricardo also explained that
earlier in his life he was diagnosed
with major depressive disorder. Based
on his symptoms, however, Dr. Fried
suspected his diagnosis might be
bipolar disorder. (A bipolar disorder is a
mood disorder that expresses itself as
irregular and cyclical changes in mood,
energy, and thinking. According to the
National Institute of Mental Health,
bipolar disorder affects 5.7 million
American adults every year. Substance
abuse frequently accompanies the
illness).
Jerome worked with Dr. Fried to
understand his illness, how his
symptoms affect him and techniques
for controlling them. Ricardo says
for him bipolar disorder means “not
having control of your emotions”,
“being an impulsive person”, and
“not thinking about consequences”.
Ricardo has come to understand and
value that people living with bipolar
disorder can lead stable, full and
productive lives and achieve their
goals with proper treatment.
Ricardo moved from CUCS’ Kelly into
an apartment of his own in the Bronx.
He is proud of his home and, most
important, proud to say he has been
sober and drug free for 9 months. He
is linked to community-based services
and also continues to see Dr. Fried. He
is actively looking for a job, maintains
his love for cooking, and his goal is to
someday own a catering company.
CUCS
Board of Directors
Chair
Julie Sandorf
President
The Charles H. Revson Foundation
President
Tony Hannigan
Executive Director
Center for Urban Community Services
Vice Chairman
Daniel S. Bayer, Ph.D.
Principal
Bayer Consulting
Treasurer
Jerry Letter
Partner & Chief Financial Officer
InterMedia Partners
Neal Cohen, MD
Distinguished Lecturer
Hunter College, School of Social Work
Naveed Choudri
Director of Equity Derivatives
Marketing
Credit Suisse Securities, LLC
Angela Mia Colasuonno
Director, Global Markets Division
Sapient
Emily Tabak Epstein
Associate
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
Don D. Grubman, Esq.
Partner
Hahn & Hessen LLP
Rosanne Haggerty
President
Common Ground National
Patricia J. Kozu
Managing Director, Finance &
Administration
National Employment Law Project
Jack Krauskopf (Chair Emeritus)
Distinguished Lecturer
Baruch College, School of Public
Affairs
IN SERVICE | Spring 2011

Giving CUCS Clients Something Many of Us Take For
Granted – A Choice
Most adults can exercise some
control over who will provide them
professional or personal services,
choosing among a landscape of
physicians, lawyers, accountants,
therapists, and others as needed.
Typically, homeless and very
low-income people do not have
this option. Physicians, medical
professionals, lawyers, social
workers, case managers and others
are assigned to help them, and
the recipients of the services have
limited if any say about who is
appointed.
CUCS’ work to reintegrate homeless
people back into society involves
helping them with housing,
employment and other tangibles,
though helping to rebuild people’s
self esteem and to empower them
can be important as well. As such,
CUCS recently piloted the Choice
Initiative to test the feasibility of
providing our service recipients with
the ability to choose case managers.
A forum of CUCS Program Directors
grappled with the question: Why
are we “assigning workers” and can
we provide more choice? A robust
debate included comments ranging
from “it will be too complicated”,
“hard to manage”, “not necessary”
“what a great idea” and “let’s try it”.
The pilot was conducted at the
Schermerhorn, a permanent housing
residence where CUCS provides case
management and related services
for 116 formerly homeless, special
needs and low income individuals.
The pilot tested giving tenants
some choice over who would be
his/her case
manager. Each
case manager was
asked to prepare
a short biography
for distribution
including
information
on education,
experience,
work style and
the reason he/
she likes being
a part of the
Schermerhorn.
Tenants were
invited to a meet-and-greet session
with prospective case managers to
mingle and ask questions. After this
session, each tenant completed a
form indicating their top choices and
matches were made accordingly.
According to Stacy Matuza,
CUCS Program Director at the
Schermerhorn, giving individuals
a choice has benefits for service
recipients and case managers.
“This sent a powerful message
that people’s opinions count and
that they have a say in the services
they receive at CUCS. For staff, it
was challenging, instructive and
refreshing for them to engage in a
different way.” She adds, “Only good
has come from the experience”.
Given the popularity and success
of the pilot, CUCS is taking the
next step and moving the initiative
across all of its permanent housing
sites. Joe DeGenova, CUCS’ Deputy
Director, who helped lead the
thinking and implementation
around the initiative, said “At
CUCS we try to follow a simple but
challenging rule regarding service
delivery: treat the tenants the way
you would want to be treated, or
that you would want one of your
family members to be treated. We
would want to choose our case
manager, so we want our tenants to
be able to do the same. Through our
discussions, we’ve come to think of
this as a basic rights issue, and we
think it will lead to more effective
relationships between tenants and
their case manager.”
A tenant named Dustin who has
been given a choice sums it up the
best: “I chose my first counselor,
Ilana, based on her bio. I liked
that she had so much experience
working with the homeless and
the mentally ill—it made me feel
confident in her. When I met her, I
liked her personality and knew we
would get along really well and that
she would be a good help to me. I
(continued on page 4)
IN SERVICE | Spring 2011 3

Lenniger Residences - continued
city, while meeting the community’s
need for housing for its low income
and homeless residents.”
Located at 2007 and 2013 Hughes
Avenue (at 179th Street) in the East
Tremont section of the Bronx, the
Lenniger Residences will promote
community revitalization by
making use of properties that have
remained vacant and under-utilized
for several decades. The Lenniger
Residences will serve as an anchor
on the block and help the immediate
neighborhood in its ongoing
beautification and safety efforts. The
Lenniger Residences in Construction
project will also include a community
advisory board, meeting spaces,
and enhance the area’s economic
development.
The Lenniger residences will also
contain a number of green elements.
With a generous $500,000 capital
grant from Bronx City Council
Member Joel Rivera, CUCS expects to
achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design) Silver
certification on the project. The
building will also meet the Enterprise
Green Communities criteria, the first
national green building program
dedicated
solely to
affordable
housing and
exceed the
standards of
the New York
State Energy
Research and
Development
Authority
(NYSERDA)
Energy Star
Program.
To meet the
requirements
for LEED Silver certification, the
Lenniger Residences will contain
a number of green elements,
including:
• green roofs
• EnergyStar appliances
• Energy Star light fixtures in
apartments
• low flow water fixtures
• green screens and plantings
• energy efficient heating and
cooling systems
• 24-hour lighting controls for
stairwells and corridors
By going green, CUCS will decrease
utility costs while promoting
sustainability and joining the
movement against global climate
change.
CUCS’ Executive Director, Tony
Hannigan, sums up: “Working closely
with Bronx Community Board 6 and
the NYC Department of Housing
Preservation and Development, we
are building a housing initiative that
advances our mission of ending
homelessness and providing
housing and opportunities for low
income New Yorkers.”
Giving CUCS Clients Something Many of Us Take For
Granted – A Choice - Continued
got to know her really well, and
was sad when she left. I chose my
new counselor because her bio was
a lot like Ilana’s, which made me
want to work with her. I like that I
can chose my counselor here at the
Schermerhorn. Before I came to the
Schermerhorn, I never had a choice.
Most of the time it worked out
okay, but it’s nice to be able to have
a say in what counselor I work with.”
IN SERVICE | Spring 2011 4

Project for Psychiatric Outreach to the Homeless
Wins APA Award
On October 14, 2010 the American
Psychiatric Association (APA)
honored four outstanding mental
health programs at an award
presentation at the opening session
of the Institute on Psychiatric
Services in Boston. CUCS’ Project
for Psychiatric Outreach to the
Homeless (PPOH) received the
APA’s Silver Achievement Award for
2010 in recognition of our efforts
and innovative approach to bring
psychiatric services to homeless and
formerly homeless adults.
PPOH is the only program in the
United States that is exclusively
dedicated to recruiting, employing,
and training community
psychiatrists to work with homeless
and formerly homeless adults in
nontraditional settings. As Van Yu,
M.D., CUCS’ Medical Director and
Program Director of PPOH, explains,
“Psychiatry is fundamental to
treating people who have a chronic
mental illness and PPOH brings its
services to many settings where
psychiatrists would otherwise not be
available.”
PPOH serves about 3,000 New
Yorkers every year.
PPOH’s Dr. Van Yu
CUCS Re-entry Program Receives National Award
CUCS’ Reentry Coordination System
(RCS) was honored with a national
leadership and collaboration award
at the close of 2010. RCS is a unique,
model program that monitors and
manages access to housing for
individuals at risk of homelessness
with a serious mental illness who are
being released from New York State
prisons to New York City.
RCS combines CUCS’ expertise
in the housing arena and data
management systems with our
experience as a collaborator among
the various service systems working
with mentally ill inmates. In the past
14 months, the project received
254 applications and has already
placed 134 inmates into permanent
housing.
The Reentry Coordination System is
funded by the federal government’s
Projects for Assistance in Transition
from Homelessness
(PATH). CUCS manages
the project for the
New York State Office
of Mental Health and
was awarded the
2010 PATH Exemplary
Practice Award for
Leadership and
Collaboration.
Richard P. Miraglia,
LCSW, Associate
Commissioner, Division
of Forensic Services for the
New York State Office of
Mental Health explains that CUCS’,
“Re-entry Coordinating System
has been in operation for less than
2 years. In that brief time it has
become recognized as a national
model for successful re-entry for exoffenders
with serious mental illness
and is an exemplary partnership
between a state correctional
Staff of CUCS’ RCS Program with their Award
system and a private not for profit
organization. Both the quality of
life for those ex-offenders served
through RCS and the safety of the
communities and neighborhoods in
New York City to which they return
have been enhanced.
IN SERVICE | Spring 2011 5

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IN SERVICE | Spring 2011 6
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