Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism
CT VIEWPOINTS -- opinions from around Connecticut

Not just a place to live: From homelessness to citizenship

  • CT Viewpoints
  • by Michael Rowe and Charles Barber | The Conversation
  • June 8, 2018
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

Twenty years ago, Jim lived under a highway bridge in New Haven. He was in his 50s and had once been in the Army.

After an honorable discharge, he bounced from one job to another, drank too much, became estranged from his family and finally ended up homeless. A New Haven mental health outreach team found him one morning sleeping under the bridge. His neon yellow sneakers stuck out from underneath his blankets.

The team tried for months to get Jim to accept psychiatric services. Finally, one day, he relented. The outreach workers quickly helped him get disability benefits, connected him to a psychiatrist and got him a decent apartment.

But two weeks later, safe in the apartment, Jim said he wanted to go live under the bridge again. He was more comfortable there, where he knew people and felt like he belonged, he said. In his apartment he was cut off from everything.

As researchers in mental health and criminal justice at Wesleyan and Yale universities, we have been studying homeless populations in New Haven for the past 20 years. In that moment, when Jim said he wanted to leave what we considered the safety of an apartment, the outreach team, which co-author Michael Rowe ran, realized that, while we were capable of physically ending a person’s homelessness, assisting that person in finding a true home was a more complicated challenge.

Helping the most marginalized people in society feel comfortable in a new and alien environment, where they were isolated from their peers, required a different approach that went beyond finding them a place to live.

The people we worked with needed to see themselves – and be seen as – full members of their neighborhoods and communities. They needed, in other words, to be citizens.

Record number of homeless deaths

Fueled by the opioid crisis, high housing costs and extreme weather, homelessness and its fatal costs are on the rise.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates an increase in the homeless population in 2017 for the first time in seven years, with more than half a million Americans lacking permanent shelter.

In addition, in cities across the country, there has been a surge in deaths of homeless individuals. Last year, New Orleans saw a record 60 homeless deaths, a 25 percent rise over two years. Denver saw an estimated increase of 35 percent over 2016, while Rapid City, South Dakota, with a population of only 75,000, saw five deaths of homeless individuals just since December.

Complicating matters, about 25 percent of the homeless population is severely mentally ill. Many are deeply distrustful of shelters and the service system, sometimes refusing to engage in services even when their lives are at stake.

We believe our research might provide a hopeful answer for the increasing number of homeless Americans whose lives are in jeopardy on the streets of our cities.

From outcasts to insiders

Jim’s story, and other similar ones, led us on a 20-year quest to create a formal mechanism to enhance a sense of belonging and citizenship among society’s outsiders.

Aristotle said that to be a citizen is to participate in the political life of a city. Much later, Alexis de Tocqueville linked citizenship to civic participation.

We defined citizenship as the strength of a person’s connection to the “Five Rs” – the rights, responsibilities, roles and resources that society confers on people through its institutions, as well as one’s relationships to and with friends, neighbors and social networks.

Fifteen years ago, we got a small grant and created the Citizens Project in New Haven for people with mental illness and criminal histories, including major felonies. Often, they had histories of homelessness. The six-month program meets twice a week at a soup kitchen.

Two graduates of the Citizens Project, second and third from right, in a performance with the Theatre of the Oppressed NYC, at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven in 2017. Contributed photo: Mara Lavitt, Author provided

There are four months of classes on the Five Rs of citizenship, covering pragmatic topics such as the capacity to effectively advocate for oneself, public speaking and conflict resolution. A community advocate and peer mentors – people with mental illnesses who are now doing well– teach, support and counsel participants, or “students,” as well as provide them with living, breathing proof that people can indeed change.

Then students undertake a meaningful project in the community, such as training police cadets how to approach people living on the streets in a nonthreatening manner. Graduations are held at City Hall, with family, friends and public officials cheering on.

The results?

There were statistically significant reductions – 55 percent – in alcohol and drug use among citizenship program participants (as compared to 20 percent reduction in the control group). Additionally, participants’ self-reported indicators of quality of life – such as satisfaction with daily activities and with their employment for those who secured jobs – were significantly higher in the citizenship group than the control groups. We have published the results in peer-reviewed articles and a book, Citizenship and Mental Health.

Criminal charges decreased, as they did in the control group, which received “usual” mental health care. Perhaps most important, each class of students became a supportive community in itself. Participants have taken seriously their new role as students, one that many had not embraced before.

Over the period in which we have conducted the citizenship project, homelessness overall in New Haven has decreased, likely through many factors, including perhaps our own work.

Citizenship approach spreading

Interestingly, however, anxiety and depression increased at various points among our participants. Perhaps the challenge of the intervention had an impact on students. Perhaps also the courage to change brought with it a vulnerability to difficult thoughts and feelings: grief over lost opportunities, lost friends, or lost dreams, even while their quality of life increased.

The project has run for years now, graduating hundreds. We’ve received funding from federal and state government. A state-wide social service agency is making their primary focus the enhanced citizenship of its 6,000 clients. Citizenship projects, based on our our model, have been launched at a state forensic hospital in Connecticut and internationally in mental health programs in Quebec, Scotland, and soon, Spain and New Zealand.

It seems our citizenship program born 20 years ago is now coming of age. The intervention is inexpensive and follows a straightforward manual. The costs of doing nothing are certainly higher.

And Jim? He did pretty well for a while, then one day ranted enough about a public official that it had to be reported as a threat. Though completely exonerated, he fired his treatment team and refused all help once again. The Citizens Project had apparently arrived too late to help him.

The stakes of full membership in society are indeed high as we undertake this work for people on the margins. But our graduates – as they are recognized at City Hall by the mayor, as they train the police, as they serve on boards of homeless shelters where they once lived – say that seeing themselves as citizens helps.

And when we see the smiles on our graduates’ faces, or when they talk about their new employment, or when they talk about their joy in getting away from drugs and alcohol, we know that their new-found citizenship helps others, too.

Michael Rowe  is a Professor, Department of Psychiatry at Yale University and Charles Barber, a Visiting Writer at Wesleyan University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.


CTViewpoints welcomes rebuttal or opposing views to this and all its commentaries. Read our guidelines and submit your commentary here.

The Conversation

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
Connecticut should work to reduce rates of inmate calling services 
by David Lamendola

Many telecommunications issues are really complicated and only interesting to a handful of policy-oriented folks. But once in a while an issue arises that has easily understandable implications for all of society. High rates for inmate calling services (ICS) is one of these issues. The way it usually works is that an incarcerated person make collect calls from detention facilities, and their family pays the bill. Unfortunately, some providers charge extremely high rates for these calls – a 15 minute phone call to a loved one costs an incarcerated person $5 in Connecticut.

The public health bill no one is talking about, but should be
by Brian Festa

On February 16,  the legislature's Public Health Committee conducted a public hearing on two bills, S.B. 568 and H.B. 6423, both of which would eliminate the religious exemption to mandatory vaccinations for Connecticut schoolchildren.  The hearing was capped at 24 hours, depriving nearly 1,500 members of the public who had registered for the hearing their opportunity to be heard.  The vast majority of those who did testify, and who submitted written testimony, opposed the bill.  The committee is expected to vote on the bill as early as  today. 

Students need more resources, fewer officers
by Tenille Bonilla

"School resource officer" is just a nice way to say cop. But what students really need is more resource and less officer.

The Board of Regents’ changes must not shortchange its students or faculty
by Carrie Andreoletti, PhD

As a university professor and a lifespan developmental psychologist, I tend to approach my work from a developmental perspective. This means I aim to foster a lifelong love of learning and to help others find a sense of meaning and purpose, as well as confidence in their ability to reach their goals. My approach to higher education is shaped by my desire to provide the best possible education for my students. This is why the recent Board of Regents’ proposed changes at the four state universities have me worried.

How to close schooling opportunity gaps created by the pandemic
by Carol Gale

We ask school district leaders to trust your public servants whose daily work life involves assessing student needs and planning or modifying instruction to meet those needs. Listen to their voices, as we have, and allocate precious resources on interventions that will offer increased opportunities for Hartford students to succeed.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion The public health bill no one is talking about, but should be
by Brian Festa

On February 16,  the legislature's Public Health Committee conducted a public hearing on two bills, S.B. 568 and H.B. 6423, both of which would eliminate the religious exemption to mandatory vaccinations for Connecticut schoolchildren.  The hearing was capped at 24 hours, depriving nearly 1,500 members of the public who had registered for the hearing their opportunity to be heard.  The vast majority of those who did testify, and who submitted written testimony, opposed the bill.  The committee is expected to vote on the bill as early as  today. 

Opinion Students need more resources, fewer officers
by Tenille Bonilla

"School resource officer" is just a nice way to say cop. But what students really need is more resource and less officer.

Opinion The Board of Regents’ changes must not shortchange its students or faculty
by Carrie Andreoletti, PhD

As a university professor and a lifespan developmental psychologist, I tend to approach my work from a developmental perspective. This means I aim to foster a lifelong love of learning and to help others find a sense of meaning and purpose, as well as confidence in their ability to reach their goals. My approach to higher education is shaped by my desire to provide the best possible education for my students. This is why the recent Board of Regents’ proposed changes at the four state universities have me worried.

Opinion How to close schooling opportunity gaps created by the pandemic
by Carol Gale

We ask school district leaders to trust your public servants whose daily work life involves assessing student needs and planning or modifying instruction to meet those needs. Listen to their voices, as we have, and allocate precious resources on interventions that will offer increased opportunities for Hartford students to succeed.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO