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Coming to Greenport: A Wellness Hub and more mental health services

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By DEBORAH E. LANS

GREENPORT–It started with the murder of George Floyd. Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson wanted something good to come of the tragedy. In June 2020 he issued an Executive Order to reform the criminal justice system, including by reducing the need for and use of policing in response to people suffering substance use disorder or mental health crises.

The Transitions to Treatment Task Force was quickly formed, and it partnered with the Greenburger Center for Social and Criminal Justice, which provided its services to the city at no cost. Task Force members represented the county Department of Social Services (DSS), Twin County Recovery Services, Inc. (which provides substance use disorder services), the Hudson City School District, the Hudson Police Department, the Board of Supervisors, Columbia Memorial Health (CMH), the Mental Health Association of Columbia-Greene Counties, Inc., the Columbia County Mental Health Center, and representatives of the justice system. Together, they mapped the resources available in the county to “intercept” those in crisis “at the front end,” before and also once they have encountered the justice system and to provide appropriate treatment.

One of the key gaps the Task Force found was in the provision of emergency, transitional and permanent housing for the target population – those trapped in the cycle of homelessness, mental health disease, substance use disorder and incarceration. (See the article in the November 26 issue on “Homelessness and motels.”)

Thus was the Wellness Hub born.

Then-City Attorney Cheryl Roberts (who is also the executive director of the Greenburger Center and now presiding judge at Hudson’s Mental Health Court) set out to find a location. She found it near the county jail and Sheriff’s Office at the Industrial Tract in Greenport. The owner, Paul Colarusso, agreed to donate a 4.8- acre parcel of undeveloped land.

More recently, RUPCO, a not-for-profit that specializes in developing and managing affordable and supportive housing in the Hudson Valley, joined the project. The state’s Office of Mental Health (OMH) has indicated its support, and recently the county Board of Supervisors made a $1.5 million grant from unspent ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds to pay for pre-development planning of the Hub. That phase will include preparing architectural designs, determining the capital costs of the project and sourcing funds.

The Hub will feature a campus-like setting. Its three buildings will serve different purposes in providing a continuum of care. At its heart will be the Welcome Center. As currently envisioned, it will have 10 to 24 units of emergency housing (for 30 day stays). An incoming resident will be immediately greeted, showered, provided clean clothing and food. At this “air traffic control center,” as Judge Roberts describes it, peer counselors and others will assess the particular needs of the individual and make the necessary connections. That building will also provide 120-day temporary supportive housing in a “Safe Haven” shelter with 25 dormitory-like single occupancy units. “Safe Haven” housing is a category of federally-defined and state-supported temporary shelter. Funding for the construction and operation of that aspect of the Hub will come from the state.

Master plan for new Wellness Hub / Image contributed

The final element of the plan is 35 units of permanent, subsidized, supportive housing: housing that will be both affordable and include on-site case management services to keep residents “on track” in addressing their circumstances. It is intended to house the chronically homeless, those with mental health issues, and individuals re-entering the community from incarceration or in-patient treatment, according to Robert Gibson, DSS commissioner.

A crucial difference between the Hub concept and other housing programs is its Housing First approach. Housing First is a model for permanent supportive housing that elaborates on common sense. Other programs condition continued housing on abstinence from drugs or alcohol (or other measures of “readiness”). Housing First recognizes that it is in the nature of such disorders that people will relapse.

Until those individuals are provided a stable housing environment, the supportive mental health, substance use treatment and other services they need to overcome their issues are unlikely to succeed. Thus Housing First settings are unconditional. To paraphrase Neil Gong, the author of a recent book about the cycles of homelessness and mental illness in Los Angeles, housing becomes a psychiatric intervention.

Studies of Housing First models elsewhere in the country demonstrate that not only are they more successful in reducing homelessness and crimes leading to incarceration but they also save money. The Greenburger Center estimates that the Hub will save the county more than $1.2 million per year simply by replacing motels with Safe Haven emergency housing. In addition, the county jail currently spends about $325,000 every year to place “constant watch” on certain inmates and for psychotropic medications. With some of those who are incarcerated instead housed at the Hub, those costs, too, will diminish. With better emergency housing choices available to those suffering mental illness, CMH will see fewer patients at its Emergency Department whose needs are better met elsewhere, and the Hudson Police Department will likely also field fewer calls involving people with mental illness.

CMH Vice President of Operations Laurie Harbeck feels the “project will be a tremendous asset to the community and the patients served by CMH, particularly in the behavioral health area. This population is increasingly facing insecure housing and homelessness as housing costs have soared…Without stable housing, much of the work of mental health remains in managing crisis, instead of recovery and resilience.”

The Hub also hopes to lower barriers to entry. The Welcome Center will be “safe, warm and literally and emotionally welcoming, unlike the motels where people are now housed,” says Daniel Almasi, who oversees the county’s Department of Human Services. In addition, one reason the unhoused often shy away from shelters is that shelters do not allow pets. But, in many cases, a pet may be the homeless person’s closest companion. The hope is that the Hub will permit pets.

Because the Hub will be located just outside Hudson, residents will have ready access to offsite social services, which is not now the case from the motels the county uses for emergency housing. Access to services is a key element of any Housing First project.

At the same time as planning for the Hub continues, so too do CMH’s efforts to increase the capacity of its inpatient behavioral health unit beyond the current 22 beds for that population that requires crisis intervention and stabilization as the first stage of recovery. In March of this year, the State Comptroller reported on the need for more inpatient psychiatric care in the state. Even as the prevalence of serious mental illness has increased dramatically in recent years, the number of inpatient beds has shrunk.

As a result, the state awarded $30 million to various hospitals in the state to increase capacity, and $5 million of that was directed to CMH – the only recipient in the Hudson Valley or Capital District. CMH will use the funds to expand its inpatient psychiatric unit. CMH also has an extensive outpatient behavioral health practice, and it is one of the partners in the Wellness Hub project.

While these projects will not “solve” the often-intertwined problems of homelessness, addiction and mental health in the county, they promise significant and well-targeted relief.

To contact reporter Deborah Lans, email deborahlans@icloud.com

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