These beds were awarded by NYS Office of Mental Health for chronically homeless adults who have a serious mental illness or who are diagnosed as mentally ill and chemically addicted. The program will provide quality housing and support services to ten chronically homeless men and women referred from city shelters and ten persons referred from Manhattan Psychiatric Center and Rockland Psychiatric Center. These will be scatter-site apartments in the Bronx, either studios or shared two bedrooms. We will begin leasing units this fall and anticipate 100% occupancy by the end of 2010. With these 20 beds, The Bridge will have 744 beds in operation in Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens.

The Bridge was recently selected as a recipient of Deutsche Bank’s SHARE (Supportive Housing Acquisition and Rehabilitation Effort) Round V awards with $150,000 in grant funds and $75,000 in loan money over three years. These funds will be used to support upcoming housing development projects including our 60-bed homeless veterans project in the Bronx and our 60-bed Brooklyn program for young adults and adults with serious mental illness.