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Permanent Supportive Housing: A Foundation for Wellness and Recovery from Chronic Mental Health and Substance Use Conditions
Three years ago, Jeannette Lewis and her 16-year-old son spent Christmas in a homeless shelter in the Bronx. With a history of chronic substance use and a disability due to a traumatic brain injury, Ms. Lewis struggled to maintain stable housing and care for her family. Her two older sons no longer...
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Working with High Risk, High Need, High Utilizers in a Mixed Use Setting: One Agency’s Experience
In a post DSRIP era, where sources of value based funding are scarce and community based organizations are still struggling to find a foot in the door partnering with the managed care industry and hospital settings, I thought it would be worth highlighting a few successful initiatives Concern for...
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The Behavioral Health Sector and Physical Health Services Models
Individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) are known to have significant co-morbid medical conditions and as such greater medical costs though only a tiny fraction of that overall costs can be attributed directly to mental health services.1 It is well established that approximately 50% of total...
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Leading the Way in Older Adult Mental Health: Recommendations for New York State
In 2005, New York State enacted the Geriatric Mental Health Act, the first act of its kind in the nation. With this legislation, New York demonstrated a significant commitment to older adults with mental health challenges, allocating $2 million per year in funding for statewide geriatric mental...
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AGES (Assessing, Guiding, and Empowering Seniors): Supporting Seniors Aging in Place in Supportive Housing
The Bridge’s Aging Services program addresses critical gaps in the mental health system by offering individualized care to seniors with behavioral health and physical health conditions living in supportive housing. In 2014, with approximately 800 beds in service, The Bridge recognized that we...
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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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Housing as Healthcare
The design and operations of supportive housing programs in New York State has been positively impacted in numerous ways by the state’s Medicaid Redesign process over the last six years. The state’s Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) recognized early on that housing is a major social determinant of...
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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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Mobile Teams: A Catalyst for Success
As we closely examine the topic of housing, it is important to stress one of the main catalysts for success in a supportive housing environment: the mobile transition team. Mobile transition teams have revolutionized the way in which we deliver care to individuals and are the future of treatment...
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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...
