Community Care Programs

Margaret

On a chilly mid-November morning last year, a small, thin older adult woman pulling a suitcase on wheels entered MLM’s Project CARE offices. Margaret could have been anyone’s grandmother, but she claimed no children and her husband was deceased. She brought only a letter from an emergency shelter documenting her homelessness…

Case manager Jean Sailors helped Margaret complete the application process to get an apartment she could afford on her fixed income. Margaret moved into an apartment two days before Christmas, slightly more than 30 days from the time she had come to MLM for help. A gold-framed picture of her and Santa Clause taken at the shelter sat on the windowsill. On Christmas Margaret was happy and safe in her own home.

Mary

Asked to leave the friend’s home where she was living, Mary was distraught because she had never been in a homeless situation before. Without a job or a place to live, Mary came to MLM for help. Case manager Barbara Cahill referred Mary to a homeless shelter and she began to relax and focus on employment training and goal-setting.

Her caseworker describes Mary as hardworking and positive. With Cahill’s assistance Mary enrolled in employment training programs and obtain housing assistance. In August, Mary moved into an income-based apartment. The caseworker and volunteers picked up furniture donated by a Lutheran Church member and delivered it to Mary’s apartment.

Jon

For the last several months, the 23-year-old man had bounced between his mother’s house and a homeless shelter. He had just started a job when he first met with MLM case manager Beth Huliska. But Jon was having little luck getting into subsidized housing due to outstanding debt accrued by a family member in his name.

With Huliska’s help and his own persistence, Jon was finally approved to move into an apartment complex in early October. MLM was able to help with paying off the debt that had been accrued in his name so that he would have utilities. Huliska helped Jon complete and sign his lease, and helped furnish his apartment with donated household item. She also aided him in understanding how and when to pay bills, what his financial responsibilities are with respect to utilities

Project CARE: Providing the Human Touch

CARE, which stands for “Community Assessment and Referral Exchange”, is a program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Through a system of intensive case management, financial assistance, and referral to other supportive services, the CARE program works with homeless individuals and families to place them into and help them maintain safe and affordable housing. MLM provides case management services for single adults, age 17 and up, and partners with Community LINC, which provides case management for families.

CARE case managers help homeless people obtain housing, secure employment, and set personal goals for self-determination. The case managers meet with clients about once a week for a period of up to 90 days in order to help them identify sources of assistance, finding employment and resolving most issues that caused them to become homeless. Project CARE also subsidizes rent (first month’s rent and security deposit), utility assistance, and provides bus passes to do job and apartment hunting. MLM case managers have subsidized these services gift certificates for household goods, food, furniture.

HUD Cuts Threaten Services

The personal touch provided by case managers through Project CARE is a key component of its success, according to Jean Sailors, the Lead Case Manager for MLM’s Project CARE managers. “People need a human touch,” Sailors says with a kind smile. However, as HUD prioritizes its funding increasingly toward “brick and mortar” and less toward services, agencies who implement service-based programs have been told to look elsewhere for sources of funding for service-based programs such as CARE.

Without programs like CARE however, it is difficult to imagine how people would be able to solve the problems that caused their homelessness. “When clients come to me they often feel worthless because of their situation,” explains Cahill, a case worker who handles single adults who are homeless, adding. “I try to help them see their strengths. Immersed in the failure of their current situation, many of them don’t understand their strengths.” Her face lights up as she talks about her work. Asked what keeps her going through frustrating times, Cahill answers without hesitation “This is my calling.”

Homeless Youth Face Bigger Challenges

Beth Huliska, the newest MLM CARE case manager, works with youth in the 17-to-22-year-old range, although she often helps clients who are slightly older. Huliska explains that the youth have a lot difficulty caused by their inexperience. “They are more vulnerable to exploitation, and due to their age it is hard for them to get into subsidized housing.” She feels that apartment managers are reluctant to rent to young people, especially without a co-signature.

Among many challenges youth face are finding employment with little or no skills and navigating the social services systems to get assistance. The challenge for Huliska in working with her clients helping them to sustain hope that their efforts will eventually pay off. “I have to work at getting my clients to be persistent,” Huliska adds. Fresh out of graduate school, she sees being an advocate for her clients an important part of her work at MLM. “I try to accompany them when they go to look at an apartment or review a lease, because I know that’s what I would want if I were in their situation.”

Life Skills = Empowerment

A portion of the Project CARE grant provides funding for the Life Skills program. Life skills are psycho-social and interpersonal skills that enable people to make sound decisions, communicate effectively, and cope better with the everyday tasks of living, such as managing time, shopping on a tight budget, managing money and credit, parenting, and skills that help people find and retain employment, such as interviewing, computer skills, and motivation.

Nate Whiters, MLM’s Project CARE Life Skills program director, views community assessment and networking as the two primary goals that will enable him to develop a successful program. Whiters started this year in assessing needs in the community (examining approximately a 4-mile radius around MLM’s offices). Based on his assessment he has developed a broad curriculum of classes that includes classes on fathering, communications skills, anger management, conflict resolution, decision-making, employability, money management, and health.

Volunteers have stepped up to provide many of the classes taught as a part of this program. Suzanne Bartling, for example, teaches budgeting and money management.

The CARE program, like any other program, falls short of perfect. Not all of the clients make it into housing for various reasons, but those who are patient and willing to take direction and advice from the case managers find a permanent home and hope for the future. If you can help as a volunteer or other means, contact MML at (816) 931-0027.

Article courtesy of Cheryl Bender, Chair, MLM Outreach Committee