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Unique People Services Opens Lynn’s Place: Agency’s First Mixed Income Affordable Housing Development
The grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony of Lynn’s Place, the much anticipated first affordable mixed-income development created by Unique People Services (UPS) took place on May 11, 2018. Ann Sullivan, Commissioner of NYS Office of Mental Health, Emily Lehman, Assistant Commissioner of...
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Permanent Supportive Housing: The State of the Research
Researchers have a host of methods at their disposal with which to assess the efficacy of service interventions and to establish the foundations on which evidenced-based practices emerge. Some of these methods, such as the Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) (arguably the most potent of instruments...
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Mental Illness and Homeless Baby-Boomers: What Can Be Done?
Greater longevity combined with the aging of the baby-boom generation is rapidly increasing the 50-and-over age group in the United States. The greatest surge will be seen among the population aged 65 and over, which is expected to increase by 65% by 2030 (“Demographics of an aging America”...
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Improving Health: Better Targeting of Supportive Housing
supportive housing, social determinants of health, Medicaid reform, homelessness, healthcare cost reduction, care coordination, vulnerable populations, systems...
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Housing People with Serious Mental Illness in Jails and Prisons: Why Are We Still Criminalizing Mental Illness?
Lack of appropriate access to mental health care for the seriously mentally ill in the U.S. is a critical issue. Such lack of access can lead to significant, adverse living outcomes for individuals living with mental illness, including homelessness and incarceration. It is a disturbing fact that...
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Housing and Support Services Create Greater Stability for Adults with Behavioral Health Issues
As supportive housing continues to be a necessity for individuals across New York City, Unique People Services’ (UPS) social workers, clinicians and case managers are working together to create safe havens and essential resources for hundreds in need. Our Bronx-based agency operates nearly 30...
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A Healthy Place to Rest Your Head
The Second Chance Program at NewYork-Presbyterian Westchester Division is an in-patient psychiatric rehabilitation program for men and women with difficult to treat psychotic disorder illnesses. Most of the individuals referred to the Second Chance Program (SCP) have struggled with being able to...
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The Housing Prescription
The Housing @ Risk Program, under the leadership of Peter Semczuk, DDS, MPH, Senior Vice President & Executive Director, Moses Campus, Montefiore Health System, began in 2009 and is designed to provide coordinated health and housing support to a vulnerable population in the Bronx. This is a...
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Treating Vulnerable, Mentally Ill Patients Who Are Navigating the U.S. Criminal Justice System
It is an alarming statistic that more people with serious mental illness are housed in America’s jails than in the nation’s hospitals (Torrey, E. F., Kennard, A. D., Eslinger, D., et al. 2010. More mentally ill persons are in jails and prisons than hospitals: a survey of the states....
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Seeking Health Care Services While Undocumented
This article is the fourth in a series giving voice to the perspectives of individuals with lived experiences as they share their opinions on a particular topic. The authors of this column facilitated two focus groups with their peers to inform this writing. The authors are served by Services for...
