In My Own Backyard
by Marti Kelly
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I have served on Pathway Homes Consumer Advisory Council for many years. Over the last couple of years, the members of the Council have been working on developing our voice and how to share our journey to help others who suffer from mental illness. We have met with several local officials in Richmond and DC, with the leaders of the Community Services Board and with many members of the community at various events in the region to educate them on the positive impact of permanent supportive housing and how program changes impact those receiving services. Recently, I had the opportunity to share my voice in my own backyard as well.
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Marti met with VA Delegate.
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I grew up in the Mount Vernon area of Alexandria. My father was very active in the Mount Vernon Knights of Columbus and I have very fond memories of holiday parties and other social events I attended as a child. As I grew up, I became a weekly bingo regular and met my husband there who later also became a leader in this branch of the Knights of Columbus. As an adult married woman, I continued to be active supporting the activities of the club.
Unfortunately, my husband passed away and I became disconnected with my family and friends. The symptoms of my mental illness made it difficult for me to focus on positive thoughts and my self-esteem, bank account and ability to live independently spiraled downward to the point where I was homeless and living in a shelter. During this period, I attempted suicide and ended up in the hospital emergency room. In short, I needed help.
Thankfully, I was connected to Pathway Homes who found me a wonderful affordable apartment in my Mount Vernon neighborhood where I only pay thirty percent of my monthly income in rent and I also receive counseling services. I still struggle with thoughts of suicide, face multiple health issues and I get down on myself. However, I then think of the many people that need my help and need to hear my story. They need to know there is help for them as well. I have a purpose.
Since living in a Pathways' home, I have returned to my bingo at the Mount Vernon Knights of Columbus and remembered that they give the bingo proceeds to nonprofits in the community helping people in need. As Pathway Homes had helped me, I wanted to ask the Knight’s to give some of those funds to Pathway Homes. They invited me to speak in September during Suicide Prevention Month and share how Pathways has helped me and about my journey. I spoke along with a psychologist who gave a presentation to attendees interested in learning more about how to detect the signs of suicide, different treatments and interventions. Despite the fact I had known many people in the room since I was a child, most folks did not know that I had suffered from depression or that I had been homeless.
Before I spoke, I was very nervous sharing what had happened to me and worried about the reaction of the folks I had known for so long. It was one thing to speak to strangers, but it was even more nerve wracking speaking to folks I know. Fortunately, my fears were unfounded. Many people came up to me after my remarks and continue to come up to me when I attend bingo night letting me know how much they appreciated me telling my story and how it helped them. I felt an overwhelming feeling of warmth and acceptance in my own backyard.
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A Message from the President & CEO
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Helping individuals get into stable housing and stay stable in housing is a goal that is vital to Pathway Homes’ mission and vision. As a premier provider of Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) in Northern Virginia and Central Florida, we recognize that safe, decent and permanent stable housing is a basic need. We believe that housing is a right, not a privilege and we are committed to using our culture of excellence to open pathways to stable housing and long-term recovery. We also know that for some of our most vulnerable neighbors- individuals with mental illnesses, co-occurring substance use, chronic health conditions, histories of trauma and other co-occurring conditions — getting a home is the first and most impactful milestone on their path toward that recovery.
Pathways Homes provides housing using a Housing First model where housing is not contingent on the individual accepting services. In that respect, all potential residents are considered “housing ready” and the focus is on ensuring that we remain “consumer ready.” At Pathway Homes, our ability to be consumer ready is the reason why 97% of those we serve chose to engage in some level of services and remained house last year. It is also the reason we were able to successfully serve 25 new individuals this past year through SAMHSA’s Cooperative Agreements to Benefit Homeless Individuals (CABHI) even though the funding was time-limited. Through our housing expansion strategies, those individuals will remain permanently and stably housed long after the CABHI funds end.
Permanent Supportive Housing results in significant cost saving to communities. That is why we continue to pursue collaborative partnerships at the local, state and national levels that promote the development of new sustainable permanent housing, and support service dollars that help individuals remain housed. Policymakers, Administrators, and Managed Care Organizations are increasingly aware that a lack of stable housing can interfere with health goals, and that integrating health care with affordable stable housing can produce better outcomes. With this realization, Medicaid expansion, and funding from the Northern Virginia Health Foundation and the Potomac Health Foundation to pilot a PSH waiver project, we are hopeful that the Pathway Homes model will expand throughout Virginia and beyond. We look forward to advancing our model and sharing an approach that integrates the voice of the consumer and excellent services resulting in positive outcomes, of which provides the greatest return on investment for our vulnerable neighbors, and our supporters.
On behalf of Pathways, I thank you for your unwavering support of the work we do and ask you to continue to partner with us on this journey.
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Sylisa Lambert-Woodard, EdD, LCSW, LSATP, MAC
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HomeAid Northern Virginia Members Renovate Townhome Top to Bottom!
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From our inception in 1980, our work focused on the healing benefits of having a place to call home. From our assisted living facilities to apartments, condos, townhouses and single-family dwellings over seven hundred formerly homeless men and women go to bed at night in a place they call “home.” We own over eighty properties and lease/manage another two-hundred and fifty. The unique challenge of providing non-time-limited housing is that to serve current consumers and expand to serve additional people in need, we must acquire and maintain these homes.
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HomeAid Foundation & M/I Homes helped renovate one of our townhomes for 3 consumers at Pathway Homes
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Anyone who owns a home understands the “to do” list of items continually lurking under that magnet on the fridge. For Pathway Homes, that is over seventy “to do” lists with a small, but mighty team of three maintenance staff and a meager budget dedicated to this pursuit. We were so grateful to work with HomeAid on a third project which is our largest and most comprehensive project to date.
The team at M/I Homes took the lead in renovating a three-level townhome from top to bottom which included replacement of the kitchen, four bathrooms and flooring throughout. They also added extra shelving to support the immense book collection for the avid readers who live in the home. In addition, they worked on the outside of the home replacing rotten wood and painting the trim, door and shutters, pleasing both the men in the home and the neighbors. This townhome is nearly 30 years old. Other than updating items to address safety and soundness issues, this home has been largely unchanged since the early 90s. This renovation required a lot of work!
With every project we have worked on with HomeAid, the contributing members always, ALWAYS, exceed our expectations. This project was no exception. After working on the home for about a week, M/I Homes decided that the guys in the house may also like a houseful of new furniture. They contacted Pathways to see if the residents would be amenable. Not surprisingly, the guys in the house were over the moon excited. M/I contacted their trade partner P[Four] Design to see if they would be interested in participating.
P [Four] Design took participation to the next level! P [Four] surpassed any of the TV home makeovers we watch. We thought they would provide maybe a new kitchen table, a couch, a chair, or maybe a couple end tables—the guys in the house would have been extremely satisfied and happy as would we. However, that wasn’t enough for M/I and P [Four], they brought in all those items, plus new bedroom furniture for all three bedrooms, a gorgeous kitchen table and chairs, a very comfortable and beautiful living room couch and two chairs, a coffee table and TV credenza. Of course, that still wasn’t enough!! They completely decorated the house with new curtains and rods, lovely pictures, attractive (and masculine) decorative items and new books to further the library currently in the house. There wasn’t one stitch of space in the house that had not been re-done in a tasteful and quality fashion.
Also, the types of materials help the residents keep a clean home. Today, a resident had shared how much he loves the bathtub and tile. He explained it is so much easier to clean than what was there before. While this may sound insignificant, it isn’t. Two of the individuals in the home have been there for over two decades and have physical health issues that curtail the amount of physical activity they can do in a day. With the easy to clean and maintain flooring, tile and tub/shower, the residents can more easily maintain the home.
From a financial sense this certainly was of significant value to the agency. While still awaiting the final market value of the work, we estimate that this project will be valued in-excess of $100,000. It costs approximately $32 a day to provide services for an individual in permanent supportive housing. The $100,000 it would have cost us to make these needed renovations can now be used to provide 3,125 days of case management services. On top of the up-front savings, as mentioned above, M/I Homes used durable and easy to maintain materials. This will save the agency and the maintenance team hours of labor and renovations costs in the future.
Even more important, three men who had been living in an aging and shabby town-home, now live in the nicest home on the block. Upon coming into the house after the renovation, one resident shared that he felt like he was living in a house out of a magazine. Sadly, individuals with mental illnesses face a great deal of stigma and some struggle with feelings of worthlessness. Living in an aging home adds to that feeling of worthlessness. Knowing that people in the community care about them and find them worthy of living in beautiful surroundings helps our residents embrace recovery and hope for a brighter future. Some have proudly invited family members into see their new place and have shown it off with pride. These family members also have been uplifted by seeing their loved ones in these new and beautiful surroundings.
In the words of Shari Arison, “Doing good holds the power to transform us on the inside, and then ripple out in ever-expanding circles that positively impact the world at large.”
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The renovations to this 3-level townhome brought it into the 21st Century!
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Pathway Homes believes in a Housing First model of care. As such, we work from the understanding that a homeless individual’s first and most pressing need is to obtain stable housing, and that other issues that may affect the individual can be addressed after housing is obtained. This is because the need for housing and other safety needs rank right along other basic physiological needs for food, water, warmth, and rest.
Last year, Pathway Homes continued to address the housing need in our community through the strategic addition of units. We expanded our housing inventory by adding 21 one-bedroom units in Fairfax and Prince William counties. Ten of these were funded through the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services Permanent Supportive Housing Project to serve an additional 10 individuals in Prince William County. The remaining eleven one-bedroom units were funded through Fairfax County Department of Housing and Community Development grants and used to house eleven adults with co-occurring mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Also, last year, the Potomac Health Foundation continued to support our service expansion into Prince William County. The Potomac Health Foundation awards grants to support community health initiatives.
Consistently over the years, 97% of the individuals that we serve remain in stable housing. Often, these are individuals who have previously lived in shelters, on the streets or in other places not meant for human habitation for many years. Others still were living with elderly parents who could no longer provide the support needed to help them sustain in the community long-term. Individuals living with elderly parents are, for the most part, considered unstably housed as they are at high risk of ending up in hospitals, jails, shelters, or on the streets. Often, moving into a Pathways unit with access to quality supportive services, if desired, makes all the difference for homeless or unstably housed individuals. No longer focused on obtaining safe, secure shelter, these men and women can set other goals, and continue their personal journey toward achieving self-fulfillment and realizing their dreams. Many of them did just that and are not only surviving but thriving.
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