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A $2.5 million federal grant will fund housing and help women coping with addiction, homelessness, mental illness in New Haven

Hartford Courant - 3/7/2019

March 07-- Mar. 7--Yezenia LeBron had a line on a job interview, but needed decent clothes. Before a new wardrobe would make sense, she needed an apartment because street life was destroying her. Before housing, she needed to kick her heroin and crack habit, if she could live through the infection coursing through her heart.

At the introduction Thursday of a five-year, $2.5 million effort to help at least 130 homeless and addicted women who are also coping with mental and physical illness, the power of LeBron's story was lost on no one.

"I'm beyond ecstatic to be a part of this," LeBron, 41, told an audience at Yale-New Haven Hospital. "I'm not embarrassed, I'm not ashamed. My mission is to share my story and help people understand these women better."

Clean for a decade, reunited with her son, now 17, and living independently, she's a peer-recovery specialist who'll be working with case managers at New Reach supportive housing and social workers at Yale-New Haven's emergency room to identify women who qualify for, and are willing to accept, a truckload of help -- with permanent housing at the pinnacle of an array of services. Women will also be approached at shelters and on the street with the offers of help.

Other hospitals and housing providers have very effective relationships -- Middlesex Hospital in Middletown and Wheeler Clinic in Hartford and programs in New London have worked to cut the number of times that low-income adults and families visit the emergency room or cycle in and out of homeless shelters.

But the effort unveiled Thursday focuses solely on women, joins together a large urban hospital and supportive-housing network that have a lot of resources already, adds frequent performance evaluations by the Bassuck Center in Boston, is committed to saving public money in the long run, and has the ultimate goal of replicating itself across Connecticut.

"Other states will be watching us," said Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz.

The money comes from a competitive federal grant -- the first one awarded with the purpose of demonstrating that this hospital-housing-social services partnership can put a significant number of women back on stable footing while making economic sense at the same time, said Kellyann Day, chief executive officer of New Reach housing, based in New Haven.

The bill for one woman caught in the cycle of homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness can climb into the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, more when children are involved, said Day.

"So for some of the women, it's multi-generational, and the vulnerability of a homeless woman is extremely high. They are likely to be exposed to trauma, such as sexual assault." Day said.

Dr. Gail D'Onfrio, chief of emergency medicine at Yale-New Haven, said that when the emergency-room teams are focusing on the medial and psychiatric needs of women who come in, the fact that some are homeless may go unrecognized, yet it is homelessness that can start and feed the cycle.

Accepting the help, of course, is strictly voluntary.

"They could tell me, 'Who are you? What can you do for me?' " LeBron said. "I tell them we have different stories but I was on the same path, and it is possible to get out. I can show you the tools, the same ones I was shown."

New Reach had helped twice, once as a 21-year-old homeless addict and again, at 31, after witnessing the death of her son's father and a relapse into heroin addiction that ended eight years of stability and a good job as a veterinary technician. She was eventually connected with supportive housing, was treated for the infection in her heart, kicked heroin without using methadone or Suboxone, and got her boy back.

Judgmental, she's not.

"You know, this is about learning how to live again, how to be a mother again, and it's learning how to forgive yourself. Now that one, that can take some time, but it's doable."

Josh Kovner can be reached at jkovner@courant.com

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