Healthy Communal Dining

Healthy communal dining is essential for our clients to lead productive and healthful lives. Good nutrition assists in fighting all kinds of medical conditions that can cause dangerous health complications and lead to poor quality of life.

Here at The Bridge, we have begun to roll out the standardization of the menus at all residence kitchens for an enhanced communal dining experience. The brainchild of Sydell Bryant, our Food Services Director, this standardization will streamline the menus of each kitchen to include the same weekly meal plans, and make sure certain healthy food groups are available. Sydell has also started to tour around to each kitchen teaching new healthy recipes and the benefits of this initiative.

The Bridge has always provided a variety of healthy food to clients, and this standardization is the next phase in the continued growth of our integrated approach to mental health.

Partners in Caring Awards Dinner

Cynthia C. Wainwright, President of the Board of Directors of The Bridge has just announced the distinguished honorees for the upcoming 57th Anniversary Partners in Caring Awards Dinner. The three honorees have made significant contributions that have positively impacted the lives of many Bridge clients and the community.

The Caring Awards Dinner will honor Ron Garfunkel, President and CEO of Service Directions, Inc. a leading laundry equipment company, as the 2011 Corporate Partner, for being a valued provider of equipment and services in Bridge residences and a supporter of The Bridge for more than a decade. George Ball, Chairman and CEO of W. Atlee Burpee & Co. and the Burpee Foundation, will receive the 2011 Individual Partner Award for being the founding supporter of The Bridge Horticultural Training Program and Urban Farms. NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn, will also be honored as the 2011 Government Partner, for her work as a long time activist in providing innovative solutions for combating geriatric homelessness and improving services for disabled New Yorkers.  

Ms. Wainwright said, “We are delighted that Ron Garfunkel & Service Directions, George Ball and Speaker Quinn will accept our 2011 Partners in Caring Awards, as partners in our work with the homeless, adults with serious mental illness, substance abuse disorders and HIV/AIDS.  We honor them for their commitment to The Bridge and our community.”

The fundraising Dinner will be held on June 9, 2011 at The Boathouse in Central Park, with cocktails at 6:30 pm and dinner at 7:30 pm.  The Gala’s theme is “A Night in Venice” with gondola rides for our guests on the lake outside the Boathouse.  Dinner proceeds will support the agency’s broad range of services, including homeless housing initiatives for recent veterans, as well as the horticultural training program and urban farms. For information about Journal Ads and Tickets, contact Ann Hyatt, Director of Development, at ahyatt@thebridgeny.org. or call 212-663-3000, ext. 379.

Poetry at The Bridge

Kate Tanenbaum

With Winter almost at a close, the focus of poetry at The Bridge has turned to the hopefulness of Spring. Bridge client Kate Tanenbaum has written a poem expressing her feelings about the change in seasons. She has been at The Bridge for 4 years in supported housing and has achieved a great sense of stability and self confidence. Kate has written many poems and wanted to share this one with the Bridge community:




The Box Containing Seasons
By: Kate Tanenbaum

With Spring upon me I feel happy to have weathered a very difficult Winter
Winter inside the box is a safe place in which I like to hide.
Warm non-threatening a place of belonging.
Safety is something I am used to now. But I miss all the
Beauty that is outside the box.

With Spring upon me I am both inside and outside the box
Normalcy feels comfortable to me such as the wind whispering through
The trees.
What is the box containing?
Answer: Winder Spring Summer Fall
Home a place of belonging to myself.

Inner and outer experiences do coincide.

Housing For Homeless

The Herkimer Street building in Brooklyn is one of 4 projects in The Bridge pipeline that will provide housing for homeless adults with serious mental illness, and for the first time, in an integrated building with low-income families. The Herkimer Street building in Brooklyn will be our first mixed use or integrated building which will offer housing and support services for 20 young adults aging out of foster care and/or the children's mental health system, 20 adults recovering from serious mental illness, and 20 low-income families from the community. 

Mixed-use housing for homeless is a model supported by the New York State Office of Mental Health that integrates people with mental illness into a building with families and other individuals. As outlined in the "Guiding Principles for the Redesign of OMH Housing and Community Support Policies, May 2007," this model helps to reduce stigma associated with mental illness, is more accepted by communities because it provides much needed housing for community residents, and it provides opportunities for recovery and rehabilitation.

The Bridge has now signed a contract of sale for the vacant piece of land for development and DeLaCour & Ferrara Architects have completed a feasibility study that determines the size of the building, number of units it can accommodate based on the zoning, a schematic design and layout as well as the costs to build. The next step in the process will be environmental reviews and approvals and a financing plan with support from OMH and low-income housing tax credits.

As with our other new developments, we are very excited about exploring green building elements such as solar energy and materials that will help to save energy costs as well as being good for the environment.

Sheridan Hill House for the Psychiatrically and Medically Frail

Sheridan Hill House (SHH) for the psychiatrically and medically frail is another unique asset of The Bridge. We know of no other housing like it in the city or state. It is a specialized residence offering permanent housing for adults with both serious mental illness and serious physical conditions due to aging or health issues. This residence officially opened its doors on March 6, 2007 and offers a community care environment, staffed 24 hours per day.

The staff provides case management services, medication monitoring, referrals to community resources, nurse assistance and one nutritional meal a day. A Care Manager is responsible for the coordination of medical and psychiatric services for all of the residents. The Care Manager also serves as liaison between healthcare providers, evaluates residents, and provides referrals for needed services and specialists. Nutritional meals are coordinated with the chef based on residents’ dietary needs. Through medication monitoring and management, training for staff, groups for residents and benefit assistance, the treatment tenants receive is extremely comprehensive.

Sheridan Hill House is a HUD 811/Section 8 development. There are 24 residents living in studio apartments. There are 16 NY/NY (homeless) designated beds, 8 of which are for long-term shelter-stayers (LTSS), and 8 community beds for those coming from Bridge transitional housing programs. The facility costs only $27,800 per bed annually to run versus a typical Medicaid nursing home, which costs $123,400 per year according to the NY State Partnership for Long-Term Care. Tenants are required to pay 30% of their income towards rent. This type of cost-effective housing saves on emergency care costs for residents who otherwise would not receive similar round-the-clock care nor would they be able to remain in the community.

Cost of Supported Housing

The real cost of supported housing for the mentally ill and homeless has been a hotly debated topic for some time. At the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Dennis P. Culhane studies homelessness and assisted housing policy. His research has contributed to a shift in public policies to address homelessness, including expansions of supported housing for people who are chronically homeless and housing stabilization programs.

Formerly, the goal of homeless programs was to treat people for issues like substance abuse and metal illness, with the goal that this would lead them out of homelessness. Presently the attention has shifted to getting people back into housing quickly with the treatment and support they need to start living independently for the long term.

Dr. Culhane’s study “Service Use and Costs for Persons Experiencing Chronic Homelessness in Philadelphia” examines the service utilization and costs within the chronically homelessness populations in sheltered and unsheltered locations. Using shelter and street outreach records over a 3 year period, the study found that 20% percent of the persons who incurred the highest costs for services accounted for 60% of the total service costs of approximately $20 million a year. Most of the costs were for psychiatric care and jail stays. A small population was incurring the most cost because they were using expensive services like hospital emergency room instead of regular doctor visits.

Supportive housing programs for people with serious mental illness who experience chronic homelessness were found to substantially offset their cost because the use of acute care services diminishes in that environment of housing stability and access to ongoing support services. 

Full Time Nurse Services Aids Mental Illness Recovery

Full time nurse services are one of the contributing factors to a wholly innovative approach on mental illness recovery at the Bridge. There is a long list of things that make The Bridge totally unique in the field of mental health, and Suzanne Calvert, RN is one of them. She is full time on staff and works with clients living in all 11 Bridge residence houses.

The primary goal is to help empower clients to take charge of their own health. The majority of her time is spent seeing clients in the community residences for extra support because these clients are in charge of their own doctor appointments and medications. She also works with clients in apartment treatment, graduate housing and individual scatter-site apartments.

Suzanne’s biggest roles are as an educator on good health practices, and communications liaison with residence and case managers about specific client needs. As part of the full time nurse services, Suzanne will go to doctor appointments with clients acting as their patient advocate to aid communication, and put an action plan in place after the visit. Suzanne also holds information sessions during community group meetings at the residences on various topics such as diabetes care, high blood pressure, and smoking issues.

Full time nurse services allow The Bridge to offer treatment for mental illness recovery that is inclusive of the physical wellbeing of clients. This can decrease client dependence on emergency room services, catch early warning signs, and keep the health of the clients on track. 

Green Mental Health Housing

The Bridge is moving on up with green mental health housing upgrades to be completed by December 31st of 2010. Through innovative re-financing secured through Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC), and NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), Bridge was able to secure $5 million of capital necessary to upgrade residence buildings that were opened between 1983 and 1992. This undertaking is called the 202 Revitalization Project and involves the renovations, upgrades and energy-efficient/green additions to 5 Housing and Urban Development (HUD 202) mortgaged properties that Bridge bundled together under this one project. 

The project has immeasurably enhanced the quality of life for the 76 tenants who are mentally ill, formerly homeless and aging. The green housing upgrades include new energy star windows, elevator and fire alarm upgrades, new kitchens and some bathrooms, new low flow toilets and shower heads, mailboxes, energy star appliances, new energy efficient lighting in the apartments, stairwells and all common areas, weatherproofing and some re-pointing as needed, insulation and white roofs, painting (using low VOC paint and adhesives), and handicap accessible hardware for all entry doors.  

Energy audits were conducted by EME Group and each green mental health housing building qualifies for NYSERDA incentives by reaching 20% reduction in energy costs. This was a difficult project in that the tenants remained in place. Every level of the agency staff including administrators, finance, housing directors, area directors, managers and line staff as well as facilities and maintenance staff worked together to accomplish the project which will be completed by December 31, 2010 in order to meet the LIHTC requirements and secure the tax credits. 

Richman Housing Resources is the syndicator; Nixon Peabody LLP is the counsel; DeLaCour & Ferrara Architects P.C. is the architectural design firm; P&P Contracting Corporation is the general contractor; and Aaron Lewit is the owner's representative.

Bridge at the ACLAIMH Conference

The Bridge recently presented on the topics of graduate supported housing and transitioning forensic clients back into the community at the 31st Annual ACLAIMH Conference. The ACLAIMH Conference is sponsored by the Association for Community Living and covers current developments in the mental health residential world.

ACL is a statewide membership organization of non profit agencies that provide housing and rehabilitation services to people diagnosed with serious mental illness. The Bridge is a proud member, and presented on how to utilize a fully integrated approach to mental health housing solutions. Today, graduate supported housing is not just about  stable living in the community, it is also about the  need to incorporate broader life goals such as family and other relationships, employment, education and leisure time activities.

Similarly, methods for transitioning forensic clients back into the community can benefit from integrating the parole officer (PO) into the treatment team, cultivating a collaborative relationship between the client and PO, and fostering personal responsibility among clients.

The Bridge’s presentation at the ACLAIMH Conference  highlighted our innovative approached to graduate and forensic housing and was very well received. You can view both PowerPoint presentations on our LinkedIn Profile.