Ricardo, Home at Last - Center for Urban Community Services

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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 Embarrassed and withdrawn, Ricardo shunned all interaction, felt a sense of loss, and didn’t know how to cope.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
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