Topic
Homelessness and Mental Health Crisis
Instructions
In these days of pandemic (we almost got through without mentioning it) and the homelessness crisis in California I found this case very topical. There is a high incidence of people in mental health crisis living on the streets and this case shows a way you can manage that problem.
I will not lead you a lot here – I want you to assess the case and come to some conclusions based on your opinions and education. I felt this case would help encourage your thinking with respect to your projects you will developing in the future – a primer of sorts.
I realize that this is a large scale expensive program, but the process for developing a smaller program is the same. Sometimes smaller projects are more difficult than larger project for myriad reasons.
We are back to a lack of direction in what you should say in your first post – I will leave this completely open ended. What is useful? What isn’t useful? Did I just waste three hours of your life?
Answer Preview
Pay for the Success project
This project’s intervention in Santa Clara County mental health crisis scales a modified Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) and Housing First models. Housing First model tends to remove all barriers to accessing housing and treatment services because it assumes the services are not for tenancy (“Pay For Success and Social Innovation Financing: Serving Santa Clara County’s Mentally Ill Residents”). Housing First and ACT delivers certain support services such as crisis intervention, mental health treatment, substance use counseling, connection to primary care, any more. The services provided by these two models address barriers to housing stability, mental illness management, the reduction of interaction with the criminal justice system, and improvements in the health services. The combination of the two models creates supportive services regarded as Permanent Supportive Housing, which is associated with a reduction of homelessness among the mentally challenged persons in the streets.
Word Count: 550