In a collaboration with Duke Health’s Division of Community Health, the Duke School of Nursing, Center’s Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams and assertive case management team will take part in a research collaboration between the Duke School of Medicine and the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness. The study, funded by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant, will look at supportive housing and tenancy issues for individuals with disabilities who have experienced homelessness or are leaving an institutional setting. Homeward Bound in Asheville, N.C. will also participate in the study.
Both organizations bring expertise in supportive housing. The Center, specifically, works with individuals with serious mental illness and works with its clients to locate housing. Duke researchers will hold focus groups and interview Center ACT and case management staff as well as clients/patients, and property owners.
Researchers will use the collected data to work with North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and Medicaid to inform the use of Medicaid funding for housing services in North Carolina. A 2015 federal response gave states the ability to use Medicaid.
About 17 percent of the homeless population in North Carolina have mental illness.
“Housing is an important component of recovery for our clients with mental illness,” said Thava Mahadevan, MS, director of operations at the Center.
“Our collaboration with Duke is a good opportunity for us to be able to provide valuable on-the-ground information on supportive housing as we see it. “
“I am excited about this project as it can help us provide valuable input around supportive housing needs to the state,” he continues.
The Center’s supportive housing program assists clients in obtaining safe, stable and affordable housing in the community. In addition, the Center is a partner in the Tiny Home Collaborative in Chatham County, an innovative solution for ending chronic homelessness and isolation that serious mental illness can cause.
The Center is collaborating with Duke Researchers Mina Silberberg PhD, associate professor in Duke Health’s Department of Community and Family Medicine, Donna Biederman, DrPH, MN, RN, associate professor, Duke School of Nursing, and Emily Carmody, MSW, LCSW, program director, North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness. Silberberg, Biederman, and Carmody are fellows in the Interdisciplinary Research Leaders program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.