My background is health care. At first, I was just determined to get sick people off the street. But after the “sweeps” in 2006, I began to see the connection between homelessness and the criminal justice system. I founded the Integrated Recovery Network to stop the revolving door between Twin Towers and Skid Row. People with mental disabilities are released from Twin Towers at midnight, with no m
eds, no housing, no direction, and no hope. So they go back to Skid Row where they were arrested. Without medication, their symptoms flare, they act out, get themselves re-arrested: then go back to Twin Towers. For some people, this happens many times a year. Integrated Recovery Network sends Case Managers into Twin Towers to work with people who were homeless at time of arrest and would be again without intervention. Case Managers help these folks figure out their own goals, and together, they set up a plan for reaching them. Then the Case Manager picks up their clients from jail, brings them to our office, sets up appointments for mental and physical health services, and gets them housing that night. None of our clients is on the street for one day. The more people are incarcerated, the more their mental status becomes unstable. I used my advocacy to convince the Board of Supervisors to pass a motion I wrote to divert 1,000 mentally ill homeless people a year from the criminal justice system into community-based treatment. We had already been doing diversion: Case Managers work with Public Defenders to identify people who would be better off with a program than a jail term. The Public Defender confers with the Prosecutor. If they agree, they ask the Judge to order diversion into our program for help with housing, health care, and jobs. We have created 215 jobs for people with histories of mental disability, homelessness and incarceration. 75% of them have stayed on the on for six months or longer. Now we have a full-time diversion program in Compton. The clients we are receiving from Compton are usually young men. It is so beautiful to see them smile as they begin to feel safe, gain confidence, get jobs or further their education. At the end of the day, I have to say, I’m in it for the smiles. --
