A five-year, $2.5 million federal grant will give homeless mothers in Little Rock more access to mental-health services through a partnership between Our House and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, officials announced Tuesday.
"By helping mothers today, we are helping the adults of tomorrow," UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson said at a Tuesday news conference.
Patterson said that, every month, 30 babies born at UAMS Medical Center don't have secure housing to go home to, which is one reason the university decided to participate in the partnership.
The grant is being used to create a program called Home Together that expands upon existing case management and therapy services provided by Our House through its Central Arkansas Family Stability Institute. The institute, which began six years ago, tries to move families out of homelessness.
Our House, which also provides job training and child care, hired three new case managers and a new family therapist through the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant.
UAMS is the grant recipient and will provide training to caseworkers and help homeless families connect with general practitioners. UAMS and Our House are leading the project with several other participating groups.
Cindy Crone, who applied for the grant for UAMS, said she thinks that, over the five years, the program will help 430 families. An existing program for families at Our House serves about 90 homeless or near-homeless families. The program has a 93 percent success rate for helping families avoid losing housing.
"We know that treatment works," Crone said.
"We learned more and more about the anxiety, the depression, the trauma that homelessness creates," said Ben Goodwin, the executive director for Our House. "Today we're going to get a lot better."
People are eligible for the program if they have mental illness or substance-use disorders, are willing to participate for at least a year, are homeless, are part of a family with a woman who is pregnant or has a child under 5, and are not on the sex-offender registry.
The most recent count in four central Arkansas counties showed 990 homeless people in the region. Nationally, about 1 of every 5 people who are homeless have mental illness, according to a 2016 report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Keandra Gilder, 25, said she plans on using the services and getting counseling to make life better for herself and her toddler, Brooklyn. Through the grant, Gilder's case manager will get training in therapy.
"It's like my own personal therapist," Gilder said.
She and Brooklyn became homeless after Gilder left an abusive relationship and went to Our House, she said. Now, Gilder has an apartment and a job at Walmart. But she says she still needs to deal with some of the trauma that came from the relationship and from the experience of being homeless.
"Everybody needs help," Gilder said.
Metro on 11/14/2018