Columbia, S.C., Center Offers Hope to Mentally Ill

By Roddie A. Burris III, The State, Columbia, S.C.

Nov. 30–Tuesday’s opening of a day program for Columbia’s mentally ill homeless illustrated the quandary often faced by those who advocate for their care.

People want to help the homeless, but even the homeless have to choose to be helped.

“I bounced around in and out of mental institutions for 30 years and became homeless two years ago,” said Connie Ray of West Columbia, a recovering alcohol and drug user.

Ray, 57, also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic depression. She described her disposition over time variously as homicidal, suicidal and very angry.

Finally, “I realized that I had given up,” she said. “I lost everything I owned materially, but alcohol was so much more important to me than anything else.

“When I was homeless, we didn’t have this.”

City leaders hail the Mentally Ill Recovery Center on Gregg Street as innovative — among the first in the Midlands to jointly address homelessness and mental illness.

“It’s absolutely what we need,” Columbia Mayor Bob Coble said. “Addressing homelessness in a comprehensive way has got to be our focus as we go forward in 2006.”

Officials estimate that more than 400 homeless people with serious and severe mental illness and substance abuse problems live in Richland County.

The recovery center also targets homeless people with mental illness who suffer from addictions to alcohol and drugs.

While several area shelters provide meals to the homeless and places to sleep at night, few offer day programs.

For those who want to leave the street life, the recovery center is a bridge to stability, advocates said.

Psychiatrists will come to the recovery center to treat the homeless mentally ill. The center also will provide such other services as showers and lockers, laundry facilities, activities like billiards and television, and the opportunity to participate in peer support groups.

Clients also get a daily meal.

Through help with housing, employment, finances, medication support, problem-solving skills and other aid, the recovery center plans to help the homeless mentally ill population regain their footing, said Julie Ann Avin, the center’s executive director.

“The Homeless Recovery Center is a one-stop shop for clients who need a variety of services in order to stabilize and ultimately pursue the lives they want to live,” Avin said.

If the pilot program is successful, Avin said it could help reduce in-patient hospitalizations, emergency room visits, and repeated trips to jail for the homeless mentally ill.

The center plans to help 25 clients in its first year and expand services over the next four years. The program is paid for by a five-year, $2 million federal grant and $50,000 a year from the state Department of Mental Health.

But for all the money that will be spent, the homeless mentally ill have to be willing to comply with recovery procedures.

Not all are.

“Homeless people fish all day,” said “Bob,” a formerly homeless man who attended the center’s opening and asked that his name not be used.

“They go to places that are going to give them something — a T-shirt, a hot meal, bus tokens so they can get where they need to go. Homeless people chase dollars; they chase food; they don’t chase promises.

“I can go stand in front of a liquor store and panhandle all day, that way I know I can get $10 dollars to buy coffee or a sandwich. We don’t have time to sit around and shoot pool all day, then go to a place to find a hole to crawl up in and go to sleep at night.”

It’s all about perspective, said Ahmad Washington, a mental health counselor at the recovery center.

“Why speculate on where your next meal is coming from,” Washington said, “when you can come here and get qualified to find housing, qualified to get your bills paid, and qualified to get your needs met?”

Some homeless are so disgusted, so frustrated with the system that they won’t be helped, Washington said. There also has been a stigma among the homeless attached to getting help, he said, but it is lessening.

Connie Ray confirmed that the homeless have to want help.

“I was angry — really angry,” she said. “I had been angry for a long time, but I didn’t want to die.

“I had been in and out of jail and it was a miserable place to be. I didn’t want to be there and I wanted to be able to see my grandchildren grow up.”

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