To The Editor:
The editorial from January 5 [“Pound Foolish”] highlights a critical issue and common theme in Connecticut for far too long. Connecticut appears to love its institutions. We are overreliant on our prisons, nursing homes and inpatient hospital beds. We also stand by as people sleep on the streets. What’s worse is that we pay significant long-term costs for these short sighted policy decisions.
Supportive housing is permanent, independent and affordable housing combined with on-site or visiting case management, support and employment services. It serves low-income people with disabilities, veterans, people with HIV/AIDS, and children and families, among other populations. It saves Medicaid dollars, promotes education and employment, and benefits communities by increasing property values. Persons with psychiatric disabilities have few options for finding housing within the community.
With a safe place to live and the right treatment and medications, many people with serious mental illnesses are able to engage in recovery and lead happy and fulfilling lives, including engaging in employment.
The state is already losing the momentum that it has gained, as the demand and capacity for supportive housing continues to exceed available funding levels.
Almost 1,500 units were left behind in recent funding rounds due to a lack of state funding sources.
With cost differentials of $54 per person per day for supportive housing, $183 for prison, $218 for nursing home, and $1,187 for inpatient psychiatric care, citizens of Connecticut cannot afford to lose more ground.
I applaud the Hartford Business Journal for their insightful editorial, which recognizes the error in the governor’s decision to stop the 150 new units from moving forward and for supporting the fact that this is not only a human services issue — it impacts all businesses and taxpayers in our state.
Alicia Woodsby
Public Policy Director
National Alliance on Mental Illness, CT (NAMI-CT)
State Fails Its Most Vulnerable
To The Editor:
As I listened to the Gov. M. Jodi Rell address the legislature on its opening day, I waited for some signal of hope from the state’s highest elected official in this dismal economic climate. We know the gravity of the state’s financial crisis, but still she said, “We must take care of our most vulnerable and we must meet the core mission of government …”
Why then has she chosen not to fund 150 units of supportive housing?
The state must take care of those who are the most vulnerable, those for whom supportive housing puts order, stability and the hope for recovery into their lives. Without supportive housing, these same folks end up in prisons, hospitals and emergency rooms, nursing homes or psychiatric wards, and therefore costing the state many more thousands of dollars per person to warehouse them in institutions.
Let us not forget the immediate economic stimulus that construction of 150 housing units would have for the construction industry. Government should lead the way by creating a special economic stimulus fund to pay the $35 million for construction and reap the savings from the reduction in the prison population, emergency room and hospital use to pay for the $6 million in services.
Community solutions are far more effective and less costly than institutions.
Domenique S. Thornton, Esq.
General Counsel
Mental Health Association of Connecticut Inc.
