Housing Protests

CSPNJ/CEC RESPONDS TO HOUSING PROTESTS

Recent events regarding supportive housing issues in Freehold and Wall Township inspired Mark Duffy, CSPNJ Director of Consumer-Operated Services and Staff Development, to submit the following item to several area newspapers. The piece will be published on the Op Ed page of these newspapers in the near future.

Community Building – If Not Here, Then Where?

Collaborative Support Programs of New Jersey (CSPNJ) and Community Enterprises Corp. (CEC) believe that people should reside in the least restrictive environment, as mandated by law. We believe that communities must be open to the needs of those who, through no fault of their own, require additional assistance to lead productive lives.

We are given the responsibility of caring for these individuals by the very society that sometimes tries to keep them out of local neighborhoods. CSPNJ/CEC is a service to the community; unfortunately, many do not view us this way, so we provide our services quietly.

After a recent Freehold town meeting during which staff members from CSPNJ/CEC were requested to defend our housing and support services -- it struck us. Is this as good as it gets? Is human nature this flawed? Or are we missing the point? Are we part of the problem? Maybe we don’t get it either! Maybe we need to reach out more.

CSPNJ/CEC provides a wide variety of services, including supportive housing, to individuals throughout New Jersey who have been diagnosed with mental health challenges; these people require our support to live productive lives in the community.

We appear to be in the minority in believing that peoples’ lives are enriched and made stronger by living in neighborhoods, as opposed to psychiatric ghettos, back wards or the “back-of-the-bus” where they are hidden from public view.

Many of our fellow citizens don’t agree with our beliefs and actually appear to be against support and subsidy as a way to give disabled persons a decent quality of life. It appears that they don’t want disabled individuals to reside within their communities; they would like them to live elsewhere. But where?

When you strip away bias, you can view the issue as one of competing interests, not only of education. On the surface, the neighborhood and borough interests can be defined as home rule, safety for children and finances. Our interests revolve around quality-of-life issues, including opportunities for those who have disabilities and find it difficult to create opportunities for themselves.

The neighborhoods’ concerns are often greatly exaggerated. Just as in the rest of society, those disabled by mental illness can be good neighbors; they do not present more danger than anyone else in the community.

Although statistics show there is no connection between those diagnosed with mental illness and child abuse, these arguments are regularly mentioned in newspaper reports in which residents express their concerns about mentally ill people moving into their neighborhoods. On April 29, 2002, President Bush said stigma is an obstacle that prevents persons with mental illnesses from getting the care they deserve.

Another issue that is consistently brought up is the potential lowering of property values when persons with a known mental health disability move to a particular neighborhood.

However, many studies have stated there is no such devaluation of property and no problems in selling neighborhood homes.

We believe that our interests and those of the neighborhood are complementary. We provide services to individuals who are a part of the community; these services include affordable housing, 24/7 supports, and opportunities for disabled individuals to become productive and contributing members of society.

CSPNJ/CEC is a collaboration of individuals from many different professions who believe that persons diagnosed with mental illness have many strengths that have not been tapped. Many of our staff members deal with ongoing mental health issues; however, they are productive and valuable members of our support teams and agency administration.

We believe that people’s lives are better when they have a purpose and can contribute to our society and our country. We believe individuals, as much as possible, should work and be responsible for themselves and their behavior.

We support open communities that are inclusive, proactive and willing to examine social issues from a perspective of shared responsibility, rather than segregation and fear.

At CSPNJ/CEC, our goals include providing our constituents with supports that help them gain a greater stake in their communities. We provide housing and supports that keep the housing affordable, decent and safe. We oversee self-help centers throughout the state that provide safe places for consumers of mental health services to meet, socialize, support each other and take on active community roles. Most important to us is the partnership with those we serve.

We now think that we need to be more inclusive, more collaborative and expansive in our mission. We need to build bridges and develop outcomes for our community involvement. We need to invest some time within the local community so that our ideas and beliefs aren’t so foreign to the majority, and so their concerns are more apparent to us.

We need to try to collaborate more with local communities to establish a working rapport. We need to create a dialogue that encourages those who believe in assisting others to speak freely and offer support. We also need a more informed majority.

We may need to redefine the playing field. Maybe we should brainstorm with state, county and local officials, as well as other interested parties, to develop a model of collaboration that will assist communities to become more proactive in looking for equitable solutions to challenges.

Doing the right thing is often difficult, and we do make mistakes. At times, situations are nebulous and it’s hard to differentiate between right and wrong. At times, the community can also be an unfriendly place in which some people are ostracized. This can discourage those with disabilities from becoming active community members.

Part of our job is to provide support and assistance so our consumers assume that role, while becoming increasingly responsible for their own actions. We owe this to them and to the communities in which they reside.

Mark Duffy, LCSW
Director of Consumer-Operated Services and Staff Development
Collaborative Support Programs of New Jersey, Inc.
11 Spring St.
Freehold, N.J. 07728; (732) 780-1178, ext. 18