Research

Creating Communities: A Response to Chronic Homelessness

Funded by SAMHSA/CMHS (2007-2012), the Creating Communities project will provide a comprehensive package of evidence-based services for chronically homeless individuals with severe mental disorders in the District of Columbia. The purpose of Creating Communities is to assist these individuals find and keep stable housing by providing integrated services embedded in a residential community enriched by professional and peer support. Our plan is based on lessons learned from a multi-year pilot project designed to develop safe, recovery-centered residential communities for the target population. Because chronically homeless individuals diagnosed with severe mental health problems frequently bring a complex set of additional challenges to services in supportive housing—substance abuse, unemployment, criminal justice involvement—an integrated and comprehensive set of services is necessary in response to these interrelated concerns.

Creating Communities will offer three evidence-based practices embedded in a set of extensive community supports based in seven housing sites, the residential recovery communities. A newly developed Residential Community Intensive Case Management (RCICM) team will provide numerous supportive services and will actively link participants to other needed supports. The supportive context for these services will be strengthened by the work of Residential Community Facilitators whose task is to assist each residential community to develop the characteristics needed to enhance the recovery of its residents. These services, offered with RCICM coordination and in uniquely supportive residential settings, are expected to help participants access and maintain stable housing by reducing mental health symptoms and substance abuse; by strengthening recovery skills; by increasing consistent income from employment and stabilizing benefits; and by assisting tenant-consumers to participate in safer, less drug-using, healthier networks. The RCICM team will arrange for all other necessary supports in each Individual Recovery Plan, including psychiatric services and physical health care. Very importantly, the RCICM team will also address the factors for each individual that have prompted previous housing loss and devise a Residential Wellness Recovery Action Plan. Community Connections will partner with the Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center to conduct a process and outcome evaluation of Creating Communities that will use both quantitative and qualitative/ethnographic methods appropriate for understanding this project. In addition to the outcomes noted above, the evaluation will track the process of service implementation, including fidelity to the treatment models. Feedback from consumers and evaluators will shape project implementation on a continuous basis.

For information about the Creating Communities project, contact Richard R. Bebout, Ph.D., Project Director, at 202-281-2915 or rbebout@ccdc1.org. For information about the project evaluation, contact Roger D. Fallot, Ph.D. at 202-608-4796 or rfallot@ccdc1.org.