More rental assistance available for those with serious mental illness
The Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority (FCRHA) approved a $20 million agreement with the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services earlier this month to increase access to supportive, affordable rental housing options for those with serious mental illness.
The additional funding is expected to help prevent homelessness among this population and reduce the number of patients at state psychiatric hospitals.
The agreement will add 300 new supportive rental assistance vouchers for Fairfax County residents over three years. Three new staff positions will be created at the FCRHA to operate the program.
Through a separate partnership with Pathways Homes, 50 participants will receive critical supportive services, such as psychiatry, case management, and skill-building services with psychosocial rehabilitation. They can also receive funds for moving costs, security deposits, and other expenses needed to lease an apartment.
The remaining 250 participants will be coupled with two supportive housing teams under a separate contract.
The Fairfax County Community Service Board will coordinate referrals from various stakeholders, such as state hospitals and the homeless Continuum of Care.
The program prioritizes individuals experiencing long-term or repeated episodes of homelessness and individuals whose housing instability frequently leads to crises, hospital visits, or contact with criminal justice systems. It will also serve people who are leaving state psychiatric hospitals and residents of congregate care settings with a high concentration of individuals with serious mental illness.
“Increasing access to affordable housing reduces homelessness. To be successful, we need to think about the individual’s whole life and what is needed to get them back on their feet,” said Tom Fleetwood, director of the Fairfax County Department of Housing and Community Development. “That is why this funding is so important – it provides critical support services along with rental assistance needed for people to be successful in their new home.”
“Prioritizes… individuals whose housing instability leads to… contact with criminal justice systems.”
In other words, my tax dollars will be spent to house criminals.
The point is that there is a significantly reduced risk of contact with criminal systems (which includes people who are not convicted of any crimes) if people are stably housed.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
I think crime causes homelessness more than the other way around.
When I was poor, I didn’t steal stuff or commit crime. I worked simultaneous minimum wage jobs like bathing disabled people, bouncing at bars, getting covered in chemicals at a factory, lugging cut tree limbs and rounds up hills for an arborist, and picking up and organizing hangers at a women’s department store. Then I joined the military and paid my way through school while couch surfing and taking the bus.
Stop giving people something for nothing. It encourages bad behavior
Thank you for sharing, and for demonstrating the white way to success.
You ARE kidding … right??? The WHITE WAY? As in: what’s going on in our country with the rules of old white men??
We are not following laws and traditions. This is why we have problems.
Bootstrapping is fine but what about those whose physical disability or other issues prevent them from doing this?
Well I guess we’ll just have to agree to fundamentally disagree. I think everyone should have a place to live, full-stop. Sure, it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. Which means that all you have to do is interrupt the cycle to make any kind of difference.
And I know from lived experience that plenty of people work as hard as you did, and don’t make it to stability. Joining the military gives a huge leg up (specifically relevant is the BAH), but it’s not an option for everyone, including some of the people who would be eligible for help as described in this article.
I do not understand this position of, “if I didn’t have help in the past, no one ever should. People should succeed with what they already have, or at most, only the options available to me.” Not to pick on you, NIMBY Bootstraps, I’m sure you have a more nuanced view. But I’m sure I wouldn’t see things the same way as you.
I like you
How nice for you. Please explain to those with mental illness that they will be medically disqualified from serving in the armed forces, and all of the benefits that that entails. Others with disabilities, including veterans, are not ridiculed for accepting benefits. Why should we ridicule those with mental illness for doing the same?
Intellectually dishonest. No issue with mentally ill getting assistance. The dig is with criminals without mental illness receiving benefits. Read the text of the first post that references the text in the article. The text includes people NOT mentally ill. That’s the issue. No one anywhere said they had a problem with mentally ill getting benefits.
You’re right. I had a neighbor on Section 8 who has a very long rap sheet. She got kicked out for assaulting another neighbor. People like her should not live near the rest of us.
Years ago I owned a condo where one – ONE unit out of around a hundred was section 8. My luck, they moved under my condo. Weed smoke was constant. Loud music through the night. Loud cars and fights in the parking lot. Management company and police said they couldn’t do anything. All sorts of weirdos hanging around and cat calling me, that didn’t live there (see recent article in this publication with 13 arrested that were “visiting”).
Then my car gets stolen from the parking lot. It wasn’t even a nice car and yes my doors were locked. A week later it turns up junked across town. The police find the person responsible because he was dumb enough to leave court paperwork in the car. Lo and behold it was a friend of the section 8 people.
It never got better and I ended up selling the condo, unrelated to those fools, but I was glad to leave. This was about 10 years ago. Want to know how to completely ruin your tranquility? Get a section 8 neighbor.
Untrue. If people are violating lease provisions, they can be evicted. Bad on the management company if they use a lease that is weak or they don’t care to enforce it. The housing choice voucher program has provisions to remove the voucher, too.
You’re right, CM. My condo complex definitely allows for renters to be evicted for violating the rules and regulations. If management and the police say there’s nothing they can do, they’re not doing their job.
No. The housing with a mental health component to it will Prevent criminal actions.
There’s a Section 8 family in my mother’s building. The kids have trashed the apartment and the board members have been advised that it’s going to a hard fight to get them out.