We're Living Through a Housing Crisis. This Brooklyn Neighborhood Has the Answer | Opinion

Many big cities and their residents are faced with the compounding crises of growing homelessness and escalating serious mental health challenges.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness reported that the number of chronically homeless individuals reached record highs in 2022. There are also nearly 60 million Americans living with a mental health challenge, including 14 million with a serious mental health condition, according to the National Institute of Mental Health These issues are decades in the making, with roots in policies that limited opportunity and prevented well-being among too many of our neighbors.

We need policies to change the trajectory and address the underlying problems that lead to housing insecurity and behavioral health problems. These are things like lack of affordable housing, trauma caused by economic instability, family separation, mass incarceration, and more. But while we look to solve these complex problems, we also need to urgently get more programs online that address the constellation of issues people face today.

In New York, one such program is making progress. Nevins Street Apartments in Brooklyn, which opened last year, provides homes to individuals who live with serious mental health challenges and who were previously unhoused or were living in various types of institutions. The Institute for Community Living (ICL), which I run, sees our Nevins Street Apartments as much more than just housing; we see it as an opportunity to address all the vital conditions that impact well-being. With this approach, residents have been able to make significant changes and become healthier, happier, and more independent.

What sets Nevins Street Apartments apart is the focus on the whole health of residents. Staff members at Nevins understand that you can't be well if you are hungry, or if you have physical ailments that cause pain or limit mobility, or if you want a job but can't access one, or if you don't have a social network to support you.

When residents move in, ICL connects them to primary and behavioral health care services, job and educational opportunities, and social supports. We ensure residents have healthy food, and get exercise at the building's gym or elsewhere, achieve healthy milestones like losing weight and quitting smoking, and get on track to realize personal goals.

This whole health approach works: Since moving in, 90 percent of residents have avoided a psychiatric emergency room visit, which is a 50 percent improvement in the hospitalization rate for people with serious mental health problems. We were also able to connect 36 percent more residents with mental health services, double the number of residents seeing a primary care physician, and connect several residents to work.

ICL is not alone in providing these types of supportive housing development programs, however, there are not enough of them to meet the need in our communities. Recent New York City data reported on by City Limits found that "just 16 percent of New Yorkers approved by the city for supportive housing were actually placed in an apartment." There is a dire shortage of supportive housing and even fewer programs that address the whole health of individuals.

Ending the dual crisis of homelessness and serious mental health challenges will take enormous will and capital. While we look for long-term solutions that ensure housing security and improved mental health, we can bring about substantive change to end the cycle of homelessness and institutionalization for people with serious mental health challenges. Housing combined with a whole health approach presents a working solution. And the great news is that it can be easily scaled to help more people immediately.

Jody Rudin is president and CEO of the Institute of Community Living (ICL).

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.