KYC’s Com­mu­ni­ty Liv­ing Teams Make a Big Impact

February 03, 2020

Brad was kicked out of his friend’s apart­ment when he missed his rent pay­ment for the third time. Since then, he’s been liv­ing on the street. He tried to get a new job months ago, but he couldn’t be hired with­out a valid pho­to ID. The stress of his liv­ing cir­cum­stances have been com­plete­ly over­whelm­ing. One night, a police offi­cer found him walk­ing aim­less­ly around a local park­ing lot, sob­bing and con­fused, with­out any shoes on his feet. Unable to calm him down, the offi­cer took him to the emer­gency room, where he was diag­nosed and treat­ed for a men­tal health con­cern. Brad received the emer­gency care that he need­ed at the hos­pi­tal, but what hap­pens next?

Although Brad’s sto­ry is a rep­re­sen­ta­tion, some of our clients find them­selves faced with sim­i­lar, high­ly com­plex sit­u­a­tions that are con­fus­ing to nav­i­gate. Ken­neth Young Center’s inten­sive out­reach teams work with excep­tion­al deter­mi­na­tion to help com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers through these kinds of challenges. 

In the recent months, KYC’s new Front Door team and Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port Team (CST) worked col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to pre­vent 12 peo­ple from con­tin­u­ing to live in home­less­ness, and anoth­er 20 peo­ple from being unnec­es­sar­i­ly placed in insti­tu­tion­al care like nurs­ing facil­i­ties. The Colbert/​Williams Tran­si­tion team helped an addi­tion­al 12 peo­ple move out of nurs­ing facil­i­ties who didn’t need to be there. KYC is thrilled to high­light this part of the incred­i­ble work the teams of our Com­mu­ni­ty Liv­ing Depart­ment do each day.

The Front Door Diver­sion Pro­gram: Find­ing the Right Envi­ron­ment for Recovery

KYC’s Com­mu­ni­ty Liv­ing Depart­ment pro­vides, among many oth­er ser­vices, The Front Door Diver­sion Pro­gram. The goal of this Illi­nois Depart­ment of Human Ser­vices pro­gram is to pre­vent Med­ic­aid eli­gi­ble peo­ple who are expe­ri­enc­ing a men­tal health cri­sis from unnec­es­sar­i­ly being placed into long-term care or return­ing to home­less­ness. This pro­gram can help peo­ple like Brad get back on their feet.

When a per­son is being dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal after being treat­ed for a men­tal health con­cern, this is a crit­i­cal point in their care. As part of the dis­charge process, the per­son will be screened by hos­pi­tal staff to deter­mine if long-term nurs­ing care is the next step to take.

If the per­son is released from the hos­pi­tal and returns to home­less­ness, they will most like­ly have too lit­tle access to the care they need. In some cas­es, peo­ple are approved for long-term nurs­ing care as an alter­na­tive to home­less­ness. If the per­son is referred to a long-term care facil­i­ty, they will be liv­ing in a high­ly reg­u­lat­ed envi­ron­ment and are left with very lit­tle finan­cial resources or oppor­tu­ni­ties to try to move back out on their own.

The Front Door Pro­gram cre­ates a path­way for a third option. When peo­ple can safe­ly recov­er in sta­ble hous­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty, they can begin the process of recov­ery in a real­is­tic, sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment. All 12 of the peo­ple that KYC’s team mem­bers pre­vent­ed from return­ing to home­less­ness were referred through this process.

Front Door in Action

Our team is con­nect­ed to eight local hos­pi­tals through­out sub­ur­ban Cook, Lake, and DuPage coun­ties for the Front Door Diver­sion Pro­gram. When our team receives a refer­ral fol­low­ing a hos­pi­tal screen­ing, there is no time to waste. Each referred per­son must be assessed at the hos­pi­tal with­in 24 hours, and they often have a dis­charge date already sched­uled as ear­ly as 12 – 72 hours from the time that they were referred. 

A new­ly referred client will need a place to stay the same night they leave the hos­pi­tal, so our team works to quick­ly con­nect them with the resources they need. Our staff locate a hotel for tem­po­rary hous­ing and help the client obtain their med­ica­tion, food, hygiene prod­ucts, and clean clothing.

Our team mem­bers are mas­ters of cre­ative prob­lem solv­ing. In the past year, our staff have expe­ri­enced (and solved!) unex­pect­ed sit­u­a­tions such as: 

• Hotel check in dif­fi­cul­ties: In order to help a client check in to their first night’s stay at a hotel, our team had to first help them get a pho­to ID. Sev­en hours, two trips to the DMV, and one vis­it to a Notary lat­er, the client had an ID, but was still unable to check in because they did not meet the hotel’s age require­ments. Our staff had to act quick­ly to secure a place for the client to stay. 
• Last-minute changes in plans: Despite coor­di­nat­ing with the hos­pi­tal for a client to be dis­charged on a Mon­day, our team learned on the pre­vi­ous Fri­day that the indi­vid­ual was being trans­ferred to a long-term care cen­ter. Our team got to the hos­pi­tal before that trans­fer took place and helped the client avoid inap­pro­pri­ate place­ment into long-term care.
• Phar­ma­cy and insur­ance trou­bles: After being dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal, a client vis­it­ed a phar­ma­cy where they were told that their nec­es­sary med­ica­tions would cost $1300. Our staff found that the client’s insur­ance had been incor­rect­ly ter­mi­nat­ed, and nego­ti­at­ed a solu­tion to ensure the client received their medications.
• Lack of basic needs items: Our staff arrived at a hos­pi­tal to find that a client was dis­charged with­out appro­pri­ate shoes or cloth­ing. Our team worked quick­ly to pro­vide the client with these basic necessities.

While ensur­ing that the clients’ basic phys­i­cal needs are met, our team mem­bers simul­ta­ne­ous­ly engage their clients in the ser­vices they need to sup­port their men­tal health. Depend­ing on the client’s needs, our staff pro­vide out­reach ser­vices 1 – 5 times per week to ensure the client is stay­ing on track to meet their goals. Our team also responds 24 hours a day to a cri­sis line that clients can call in emergencies. 

After their clients are con­nect­ed with the most imme­di­ate sup­ports that they need, our staff con­nect them with longer-term resources that sup­port recov­ery. Clients may be intro­duced to KYC’s psy­choso­cial reha­bil­i­ta­tion group (PSR), the Drop-in Cen­ter, and sub­stance use pro­gram­ming. They may learn about pro­grams offered through local park dis­tricts, munic­i­pal­i­ties, senior cen­ters, or reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions. Our team pro­vides their clients with the ser­vices that are per­son­al­ized to help them reach their goals. Final­ly, our team mem­bers help their clients search for and obtain a more per­ma­nent home.

Impact Mak­ers

Each per­son served through the Front Door Pro­gram is unique, and faces indi­vid­ual obsta­cles to find­ing a per­ma­nent home. They may have prob­lem­at­ic cred­it, minor crim­i­nal his­to­ry, trans­porta­tion dif­fi­cul­ties, or they may lack employ­ment or oth­er income sources. From help­ing their clients with inter­view skills, to help­ing them search for apart­ments, to help­ing them move in to their new homes, our CST mem­bers are there to sup­port their clients along every step of the way. 

Of the 20 peo­ple divert­ed from long-term care facil­i­ties, nine were liv­ing on the streets or in aban­doned build­ings. Four were liv­ing in unsta­ble and unsafe hous­ing, unsure from day to day where they would be able to stay. Thanks to the work of our amaz­ing team mem­bers, these peo­ple each have a place to stay, and will hope­ful­ly soon have a per­ma­nent place to call home. They are con­nect­ed with the wrap­around ser­vices that they need to be sup­port­ed as a whole per­son, and they have a team ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing them reach their goals.

How You Can Help

Give. Our team is always in need of items they can share with their clients as they face dif­fi­cult tran­si­tions. Gift cards in small amounts to local restau­rants (like Sub­way or Burg­er King, etc) for a quick meal are immense­ly help­ful, espe­cial­ly when try­ing to nav­i­gate the numer­ous dif­fi­cul­ties on the day of hos­pi­tal dis­charge. In addi­tion, clean­ing sup­plies, hygiene prod­ucts, and oth­er items can help too. Your gifts can be giv­en to indi­vid­u­als who are tran­si­tion­ing from home­less­ness to liv­ing in sta­bil­i­ty. To learn more about how to donate these items, check out our Ama­zon Wish List or con­tact our team.

Join our team. Our Com­mu­ni­ty Liv­ing team is grow­ing, and we cur­rent­ly have job oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able to become part of a team that makes a big impact. Check out all of our avail­able posi­tions here, or learn more about our Com­mu­ni­ty Liv­ing Hir­ing Fair on Feb­ru­ary 15^th, 2020.

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