Type of service: Residential support services
Connecticut employees: 100
Headquarters: Springfield (Connecticut offices in Hartford, Waterbury, Danbury and Torrington)
Top executive: James Goodwin, president & CEO
Winning category: Nonprofit collaboration of the year
“Collaboration is our middle name,” says Milton Jones, program manager for the Center for Human Development – Connecticut West (CHD). “It’s a part of everything we do, from the programs we run and the budgets we operate to the spirit of the very special people I work with who make it all come together.”
Jones, a 30-year veteran of CHD, and his organization have spent the past five years collaborating with New Neighborhoods Inc., a Stamford-based nonprofit developer of low- to moderate-income housing, to build Samuel’s Court, a 28-unit complex in Danbury. Opened in 2009, the twin buildings are home to low-income Danbury area individuals and families. Eleven of the units are reserved for those who once were homeless and others who are battling mental illness and substance abuse issues. The project is credited with having significantly reduced Danbury’s homeless population.
Jones said that his organization is a part of the Springfield-based Center for Human Development, a regional organization that provides a wide range of social services to individuals throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut. In particular, his group provides residential support services to western Connecticut individuals who suffer from mental illness and drug addiction. His office serves about 300 clients a year.
“The key to getting people back on their feet is to provide them with permanent housing,” he said. “We work with them to find homes and subsidies to help with support, and we provide staff members to help them become functioning members in the community. Our goal is to help them become productive citizens. We want our clients holding jobs, paying taxes and doing all the things that makes for good citizens. And it all starts with making someone feel they have a real home again.”
To accomplish this, CDH – Conn. West collaborates closely with city and town administrators, the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addictive Services, and a host of other local and state entities that, together, form a social services safety net that has a direct affect on local city and town budgets, taxes and services.
“Without the kinds of services we provide,” Jones said, “many of our clients would be back living on the streets or in shelters. They’d be again filling the hospitals and emergency rooms and, also, the jails. We offer a way out of this cycle.”
Jones said he is grateful for his organization being named top Nonprofit Collaboration of the Year award winner because it increases the exposure of his group’s work and spreads the word about the availability of services that exist for those who need it most.
“Our people — both our staff and our clients — invest tremendous amounts of time and emotion in the work they do. It’s very rewarding to see their work and its results acknowledged,” he said.
