Housing Authority Notifies My Son Of A Vacancy

Aspect of Need Addressed: Residential

My son recently received a notice from the public Princeton Borough Housing Authority. A subsidized studio apartment became available for which he could apply. Fortunately, he has already secured housing through a different private local agency, Princeton Community Housing. But the letter provided an opportunity to remind ourselves about this particular--and critical--Aspect of Need.

One of most challenges aspects of mental illness is housing. Studies show that stable and adequate housing is a critical element in recovery. But housing for disabled mentally ill is extremely hard to get, especially in high-cost places like New Jersey.

Housing: Three Kinds

For afflicted loved ones, there are basically three kinds of housing: supportive, subsidized, and "affordable".

Supportive housing is usually group or cluster housing where the psychiatrically diagnosed can receive low-cost housing with various supports, like medications management, transportation, assistance with financial management, emergency services, and other services mentally ill residents may need from time to time. Rents are usually assessed as a percentage of a resident's income, no matter how low, usually at 30% of deemed income. Thus for disabled consumers receiving only SSI and SSD, which in total might only amount to about $700 per month, supportive housing rent might be assessed at only $210.

Clearly such low rents hardly suffice to cover costs, so funding for supportive housing usually requires two other sources: rental subsidies and program sources. Rental subsidies include so-called HUD Section 8 vouchers, either "project-based" or "individual-based". They also include state subsidies. In New Jersey, this subsidy is called the NJ State Rental Assistance Program, or SRAP, managed by the NJ Department of Community Affairs, which serves about 430,000 families currently. Program sources are funds for the specific program supports. One such support is the Program of Assertive Community Treatment, or PACT, which for certain consumers provides an outreach full-service of psychiatric supports where a consumer lives. But PACT only serves a restricted number of consumers who fit certain recovery needs criteria.

(By the way, one such PACT client, in Mercer County, NJ, is Nobel Prize Winning Physicist John Nash, subject of the movie and book, A Beautiful Mind. Click here to read an article about his involvement in PACT.)

Supportive housing is in extremely short supply. Priority at the moment is given to institutionalized consumers. Certain judicial decisions, like the Olmstead Decision requires New Jersey to find community housing for consumers in mental hospitals who qualify for discharge but who are not able to be released for lack of adequate housing. Such cases usually receive priority in the assignment of supportive housing. Local examples of supportive housing include SERV Behavioral Health's apartment building on Belmont Avenue in Trenton, NJ, or Catholic Charities On My Own Supportive Housing Program in Mercer County and elsewhere in the Trenton Diocese.

Subsidized Housing is the second subset. Unlike Supportive Housing, Subsidized Housing addresses only financial need. And the financial need addressed tends to be very low income. Rents for subsidized housing also tend to be based on a percentage of income, i.e., 30%, no matter what amount. "Section 8" housing from the HUD constitutes a major source of such subsidized housing.

And then there is Affordable Housing, which addresses a wider range of financial need, not only the poorest of the poor, but also the poor and sometimes even the less poor. "Affordable Housing" is a relative term. In the State of New Jersey, a whole scheme of affordable housing is governed by the controversial Council on Affordable Housing, or COAH, which has set regulations and rates for affordable housing in response to the New Jersey Supreme Court decision in the landmark Mt. Laurel case, which ruled that the State of New Jersey had a constitutional obligation to provide for affordable housing. (New Jersey is the only state in the Nation to have such a constitutional obligation.) Every municipality has now been required to organize its own COAH plan, resulting in numerous (and often disparate) programs.

The Housing Authority's Notice

The Princeton Borough Housing Authority is a regular Public Housing Authority, or PHA. PHAs tend to be public agencies (as opposed to private non-profit organizations). They have governmental sanction and connection to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which maintains a section about them on its website. New Jersey alone has scores of PHAs.

The letter to my son was the first step in the Housing Agency's facility allocation process. He has been on their waiting list for over two years. His waiting list position is #17. When a unit becomes available, the Princeton Housing Authority notifies all on its waiting list and asked those interested to respond. Those who respond are invited to submit additional information about themselves and submit to a background and credit check. Those who pass these tests are then eligible to be considered for the available unit. The Housing Authority then proceeds sequentially down the waiting list until a qualified candidate is founded, who is then invited to take the unit. If that candidate does not accept, then the next qualified person on the waiting list is invited. And so on.

Well, this part of The System seems random, arbitrary and officious. Such is probably to be expected in a government program that is managing a scarce resource in high demand.

Depression And BiPolar Support Alliance: Great Resource

Aspects of Need Addressed: Medical, Psychiatric, Functional, Informational

One of the good websites out there is that of the Depression and BiPolar Support Alliance. I particularly like the many informative brochures DBSA publishes. In my local area, the DBSA Princeton chapter is also a fine resource, offering very intelligent and helpful speakers and good fellowship among many very engaged consumers.

Indefinite Medical Leave: Insufficient Cause For Unemployment Comp

Aspects of Need Addressed: Occupational, Financial

Surely one of the most vexatious areas of The System for a disabled loved one must be the Division of Unemployment and Disability Insurance Services in the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Nothing about it is easy or transparent--not the way of determining unemployment, the methods of applying for unemployment compensation, the automated telephone means of reporting status, on and on and on.

So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by the computerized form letter my son received today from this office. It reads:

YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED THAT BASED UPON THE FACTS OBTAINED AND IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE NEW JERSEY UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION LAW, THE DEPUTY (NAMED BELOW) HAS DETERMINED THAT:

YOU ARE DISQUALIFIED FOR BENEFITS FROM 02/14/10 AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE DISQUALIFIED UNTIL YOU HAVE WORKED IN FOUR OR MORE WEEKS IN EMPLOYMENT AND HAVE EARNED AT LEAST SIX TIMES YOUR WEEKLY BENEFIT RATE.

EFFECTIVE 2/15/10, YOU VOLUNTARILY LEFT YOUR JOB AS YOU CANNOT RETURN TO WORK FROM A MEDICAL LEAVE OF ABSENCE. WHILE THIS MAY BE A COMPELLING REASON FOR LEAVING, IT IS CONSIDERED PERSONAL AND WITHOUT GOOD CAUSE ATTRIBUTABLE TO WORK. THEREFORE, YOU ARE DISQUALIFIED FOR BENEFITS. THIS IS THE SECOND OF TWO DETERMINATIONS.

DEPUTY: A RIVERA
FOR:
DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

All this arose when my son had to leave his retail store cashier's job last December 15 to enter a partial care hospitalization program. He had to leave to address an addiction relapse. It was triggered on the job, where a couple of low-life co-workers were selling marijuana during the lunch hour to which my son succumbed.

Uncertain of how long he needed treatment, my son arranged with his employer a medical leave of absence. After a month, he still needed to continue his medical treatment. So he decided that he should formally end his job and reapply to his employer whenever he was better. After this decision, he reported his new status to the Social Security Administration, which revised his SSI and SSD to their maximum possible amounts. It was during this process that the Mercer County Board of Social Services sent him to the Division on Unemployment Insurance to determine his eligibility for unemployment compensation prior to any revision in his SSI and SSD. As it happened, The System in this case exercised correct policy: a disabled mentally ill worker could revert to higher SSI and SSD if he should have to leave his job, as long as he would not be receiving revenue from unemployment insurance.

What would be good to research is a question of relative benefit. For such a disabled person who might have to leave a job to enter treatment, which situation would allocate him more benefit? In other words, would the incremental SSI and SSD be less or more than the revenue he might have received from unemployment compensation? I have a hunch that the unemployment compensation would be more. In any event, it is worth reflecting on the occupational challenges the psychiatrically afflicted face on the road to recovery. Frequently cycling in and out of jobs as dictated by medical requirements requires enormous administrative and organizational effort.

More Helpful Information, From The Feds

Aspect of Need addressed: Informational

Here's another good general site for information about mental health, from SAMHSA:

SAMHSA: Helpful Federal Info Resource

Aspect of Need addressed: Informational

Somewhere in every afflicted loved one's odyssey, there will be reference to or contact with SAMHSA, the Substance and Mental Health Services Administration, part of the US Department of Health and Human Services. SAMHSA has a lot of information. A visit to its website is worth the effort, just to get familiar with what SAMHSA is and has on offer.

SAMHSA is cooking up something called The Co-Occurring Disorders Initiative, or CODI, which looks like something to keep on the radar screen. CODI supports SAMHSA's goal to improve the quality of life for persons with mental health and substance abuse disorders. CODI provides information and resources to promote access to effective integrated services for persons with co-occurring disorders.

WRAP: Strengthening The Inner System

Aspects of Need addressed: Psychiatric, Medical, Spiritual

When The System from the outside beats down our mentally ill loved ones that it is supposed to serve, a good way to respond is for them to strengthen their own systems from the inside.

That is the premise behind a holistic, consumer-focused approach called Mental Health Recovery and Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP), the brainchild of Mary Ellen Copeland. Afflicted also with mental illness, Copeland discovered the surprising possibilities for "recovery" from mental illness, helped devised a methodology for consumers to achieve such recovery and now runs a renowned training enterprise to promote this evidenced-based practice.

Consumers applying the principles of WRAP learn that they could identify triggers of their illness and establish plans of action in advance to address and reduce them. WRAP is a program of self management and recovery, unique to every individual who uses it. Each plan is designed and set up by each consumer. Each consumer may choose to have selected supporters (family and friends) and health care providers assist and support them as they work on their own plans.

Here's an example of a WRAP plan outline.

Copeland's enterprise, Mental Health Recovery, through its Copeland Center, conducts training sessions around the country regularly. A WRAP training class will soon begin in my area of Central New Jersey, beginning on Wednesday, April 14 at 6:30 pm at the offices of NAMI Mercer. For more information about this class, click here.

Ticket To Work: Help for the Disabled

Aspect of Need Addressed: Occupational

One of the benefits of The System that comes to a consumer who qualified to received Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) is a "Ticket to Work", a program of the Social Security Administration.

The Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program is an employment program for people with disabilities who are interested in going to work. The Ticket Program is part of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 – legislation designed to remove many of the barriers that previously influenced people’s decisions about going to work because of the concerns over losing health care coverage. The goal of the Ticket Program is to increase opportunities and choices for Social Security disability beneficiaries to obtain employment, vocational rehabilitation (VR), and other support services from public and private providers, employers, and other organizations.