Features

Program Demonstrates Possibility of Permanent Housing for the Homeless

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 09, 2007

The man with the sparkling eyes and shoulder-length salt and pepper hair who laughs and jokes with a visitor and shares his passion for photography and writing could have spent much of his life homeless, living in backyards in what he describes as a tube, or shut away in a mental institution. 

Instead, John Endicott works every day at focusing on reality, practices his art, moves freely about the community and has friends at the Russell Street House where he’s lived in a supportive community of people with mental illness since its inception in 2001.  

The 17-person residence and four-person annex is a Berkeley Food and Housing Project endeavor that has been successful in permanently housing people with mental illnesses.  

The project, which costs about $460,000 annually, is funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD), residents’ fees and city funds. It faces possible cuts in some services, as a result of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to terminate AB2034 mental health money, according to Harvey Turek, director of the city’s mental health division. (See related story.)  

Sporting a spotless white short-sleeved shirt, tie and smart wool pants, Endicott—who has learned if you’re careful you can launder clothes yourself despite the “dry clean only” label—spoke to a reporter on Tuesday in the sun-drenched dining room on Russell Street.  

Born in San Francisco, the 63-year-old graduated from Berkeley High, attended community college and then UC Berkeley. After a bad break-up of a relationship, Endicott said he began living in yards of various property owners with their blessing. At one point, he found an apartment to rent, but circumstances led him to be taken, in a manner he won’t forget, to a mental hospital, where he stayed for a year and a half. “Some of the things I saw there would curl your hair,” he said. 

Then Endicott was sent to a board-and-care home where the Russell Street House is now located, and soon was given a choice to go to a different board-and-care or to enter the new program. “My program manager said, ‘stay, something wonderful is going to happen,’” he said. “And in a way, that phrase would underline what would really happen in the program.”  

This is the kind of project that can permanently take people off the streets, Turek said. It’s staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week—people get nutritious meals, counseling and recreational activities. Four participants live semi-independently in a house next to the main residence. 

There are obstacles duplicating a program like this: one is funding and another is location. Neighbors in Berkeley often refuse to allow a home with mentally ill people locating on their block. Some of Berkeley’s formerly homeless, mentally ill people are housed in single-room occupancy hotels in Oakland, where conditions are not optimal, Turek said. 

Neighbors at the Russell Street program welcomed the city taking over the site, which already had a permit, because the previous board and care facility had been badly managed, Turek said. 

More such programs are needed: the chronically-homeless (homeless for more than a year) mentally ill are highly visible on Berkeley streets and Berkeley residents are growing more intolerant of what they see as their inappropriate behavior, Turek said. In 2005 the city counted 529 chronically homeless people, out of 836 individuals living on Berkeley streets at one time. Seventy-six percent of the chronically homeless have been diagnosed as mentally ill.  

While Berkeley is home to 12 percent of the county’s homeless population, some 40 percent of the chronically homeless live in the city, according to 2005 statistics. (The city conducted a count of homeless people on Jan. 31, but has not yet released its findings.) 

Turek explains that the approach to housing chronically homeless people has shifted. Professionals used to believe a person’s mental instability and/or substance abuse had to be addressed before that person could be offered housing. 

Now it is understood that housing with case management, counselor and food services is the best way to get people off the street for the long term. “The policy shift is a move away from the safety-net/emergency shelter model,” he said. 

Still, the city cannot give up its emergency shelters. During the intense cold snap last month, Berkeley was able to house all the people who wanted shelter, some in the emergency shelter in Oakland, some at the shelter run by the Catholic Worker and some with motel vouchers.  

Today’s service-intensive approach means one case manager has 10-15 clients, often seeing them daily, rather than 30-50 clients, as in the past. Although the cost is higher, “It is way cheaper than hospitalization,” Turek says, noting the cost of a psychiatric bed is about $1,000 per night. 

People used to work under the assumption that homeless people “had to get stable before they got housing or they would blow out of a program,” Turek said. 

That was a “blame-the-victim” mentality, Turek said, explaining, “The idea that the client has to be motivated for treatment is not necessarily true. Homelessness itself can give an individual more problems, with increased drug and alcohol abuse.” 

While most people come to Russell Street voluntarily, Endicott talked about one person a judge sentenced to the residence. And it worked out. “He found himself,” Endicott said. “It is a mutually supportive place.” 

How do residents support one another? “By saying it softly, when it can be said harshly by staff,” Endicott said, adding that he supports others with praise—“Honest praise.” 

When Russell Street House first opened, it was Endicott’s job to work with staff to “prep” the meals, help get things out of the oven and load and unload the dishwasher. “Many, many times, staff would say something wonderful,” he said. Soon one of the staff gave Endicott a “Wonderful Book,” where he would write down wonderful things staff would say and other interesting daily events. 

Endicott helps others as he has been helped over the years to focus on reality. For example, he’ll take a walk with another resident and look for leaf prints on the sidewalk. “You get anchored in reality and decide to do something with it. No television, no movies, no drugs,” he said. 

There are no window bars or locked gates at Russell Street House. These days, Endicott walks to a nearby senior center for lunch where he’s made friends, and he sits in the front pew and joins others in song at church on Sunday. 

Endicott calls himself a cheerleader for the program. “The magic comes when somebody can’t set the table and they talk to you and decide to do it,” he said. 

 

Photograph by Judith Scherr. 

John Endicott of the Russell Street House.