NewBridge’s NJ FamilyCare Housing Supports Program Begins Second Year
A woman got word that NewBridge Services might be able to help her find a stable place to live. She was sharing a subsidized hotel room with her mother and 93-year-old grandmother, and though she worked full time, her poor credit and employment history presented obstacles to renting a home.
Staff of NewBridge’s NJ FamilyCare Housing Supports Program located an apartment in a 55+ community for the three women and coordinated with other organizations to get them set up. The collaboration provided the first month’s rent and security deposit, assistance with furnishings and groceries, and a moving service.
“There are many steps beyond finding housing,” said Melissa Reiley, Assistant Director of Community Outreach and Support. Among them is reassuring landlords that clients will have the support they need to keep their housing.
Just over a year since it launched, NewBridge’s housing supports program has worked with 67 people who were unstably housed or homeless and, when counting household members, benefited more than 100. Participants are Medicaid-enrolled residents of Bergen, Morris, Passaic, Sussex, and Warren counties who have a chronic medical or mental health condition or a developmental disability. They are divided roughly evenly among older adults, families with children, and single adults.
“One of the most eye-opening experiences has been seeing the level of hidden need in our communities,” said Carolyn Dean, Executive Director of Community Outreach and Support. “Many of these people’s circumstances would not be apparent if you met them on the street or chatted with them in line at the grocery store.”
Unstable housing takes numerous forms: a family doubled up in someone else’s apartment; a person living in a shelter or in a place without heat or hot water; an older adult unable to manage the stairs to their home; or someone who has fallen behind on rent and faces eviction.
The program’s five-member team assists with both pre-tenancy and tenancy services — from housing searches and move-in paperwork to eviction prevention, landlord communication, and community connection. Once a client is in a stable home, case managers check on them at least once a month, and much more frequently depending on the individuals’ needs.
Many clients require extensive support, often from multiple agencies, to ensure they remain stably housed. “For a woman experiencing domestic violence, for example, we connected her with one organization for counseling, another for safety-related assistance, and another for legal help,” Reiley said.
Some participants never learned how to pay bills, maintain a safe space, or communicate with their landlord, so a case manager teaches them those necessary skills for independent living.“Housing may be the central need, but it is not the only need,” Dean said. “It has turned into whole-person care.”
The mother of a child with extensive medical needs turned to NewBridge when her lease wasn’t renewed. “A child on a respirator cannot go into a shelter,” Dean said. NewBridge helped her find and move into an apartment and access financial assistance through Medicaid for start-up costs such as furnishings, kitchenware, and pantry items.
“We’ll work with her for a couple of months to make sure she connects with services in her new neighborhood and remains stably housed,” Dean said, describing the program as “the literal bridge” from housing instability to a stable home. The underlying optimistic message is, “You don’t need to stay on assistance forever.”
Insurance companies are a main referral source, as is word of mouth and clinicians in NewBridge’s Parsippany-based program for people discharged from inpatient psychiatric treatment. The housing supports program maintains a weekly presence at a Sussex County food pantry and staff attend outreach programs to spread the word.
The housing supports program is funded through NJ FamilyCare, New Jersey’s Medicaid program, and administered by the state Division of Medical Assistance and Health Services.
In the program’s second year, staff will receive specialized training, and an additional grant could allow NewBridge to hire a part-time, Spanish-speaking case manager. The program aims to increase its active enrollment to 115.
“Considering how hard it is to find housing in New Jersey — and affordable housing at that — I think we’ve been pretty successful,” she said.
For more information, call (973) 686-2279 or email hsp@newbridge.org.
Photo caption: NewBridge’s NJ FamilyCare Housing Supports Program staff with Christian Health President & CEO Stephen Dumpke are, from left: Front Office Staff Member Farida Begum; Executive Director of Community Outreach and Support Carolyn Dean; Assistant Director of Community Outreach and Support Melissa Reiley; Team Leader Ralph Savarese; Dumpke; and Case Manager Airen Evbuomwan.
###
