A Person-Centered Approach to Substance Use: Lessons from the Barbershop

When you walk into your favorite barbershop or hair salon to get a shape-up, a trim, or a new look, what happens? Likely you’re greeted with smiles and welcoming words. If it’s a bit fancy, maybe an assistant offers you something to drink. Somebody takes your coat, offers you a seat. There is a...

More Than a Roof

Today’s focus on revenue streams, value-based payments and the needs of people who use multiple services creates one of two false paradigms. Either we try to fit the square peg of supported housing into the round hole of clinical interventions, or we reduce housing to merely a roof over one’s...

Integrating Physical and Behavioral Health Care Systems: Lessons Learned in New York City

In New York City, as elsewhere, people with mental illnesses have worse physical health outcomes, on average, than the rest of the population. An estimated 239,000 New Yorkers live with serious mental illnesses, or SMI (Community Mental Health Survey 2012). They are significantly more likely to...

Creating Culture Change: NYC Tackles Housing and Employment

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), together with community partners and providers, is working to increase access to employment and affordable housing for all people with mental illnesses. Local governments, including health departments, are ideally positioned to...

Many New York City Residents Helped by DOHMH’s Depression and Primary Care Initiatives

The term depression has become pervasive within our culture, from the more common use of the word reflecting a person’s temporary state of unhappiness, to the DSM-IV TR classification used to describe a person’s medical condition involving a prolonged state of sadness, loss of interest in life,...

Supportive Housing: A Cornerstone to Recovery in a Changing World

Advocates, providers, recipients, and policymakers are adjusting to the rapid pace of change in the mental health care system including behavioral health organizations, Health Homes, Medicaid reform, and many others. These changes, while challenging, present opportunities to improve efficiency,...

The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Responds to Post 9/11 Public Need

In recognition of the lasting psychological consequences of the WTC attack for many New York City residents, the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene launched the NYC 9/11 Benefit Program for Mental Health and Substance Use Services. This benefit helps cover the costs of services...