Mentally Ill Find New Beginning At Halfway House

Out of the snarled jungle of mental illness leads a road to recovery which ends at a house in Ann Arbor. lts unassuming three stories of red brick and apple green siding stand at 1526 Packard ... a house with worn but warm looking furnitiae, white dotted swiss curtains and the aroma of steaming pot roast spinning through each room. It's a typical image of home to anyone but the 13 men who live there. To most of thera, home for a long time has meant the cloistered walls of Ypsilanti State Hospital. The houss on Packard means a new beginning. The "halfway house" is a relatively new development in the medicine of mental health. George Kimball, psychiatrie social worker at the state hospital, estimates there are less than 100 in the United States. Ann Arbor has three and plans for a fourth. The residents of these houses are missing the last link to full recovery: a family to come home to. Unprepared, having become used to a "custodial" environment, for living completely on their own, they have been released to small private homes. "The State Dtpartment of Mental Health pays $4.35 per day to cover the room and board of the after-care patiënt," Kimball explains. "Typically the after-care patiënt was taken in by a retired woman who needed to supplement her income. Because of her lack of commitment and insufficient supervisión, a home like this became a sort of dumping ground, I'm afraid. With no one to guide him in making friends or getting a job, the former patiënt was apt to sit around the house all day. Well, he could have one that at the hospital." The solution was a professional live-in counselor and a house large enough to accommodate many after-care patients, so that their lated state stipends would pay the counselor's salary. j A similar idea of a home for young jail probationers was growing simultaneously at the hands of WITH Housing, Inc. "It began about three years ago with one of my clients, 18 years old, who was released from jail but had no place t. go," Attorney Pauline R. Rothmeyer recalls. "It wasu't until an Ann Arbor family opened their home to him that he was I; able to 'make it' on his own. He finished high Í school, got a job; his whole life pattern seemed t to reverse itself because of this experience." ■ To help other young men in this situation, I Miss Rothmeyer and two Ann Arbor friends, Mrs. I George Perraut and Mrs. Robert Hooper, began I an independent campaign to finance the down I payment of a house at 346 Kingsley. I ing ministers and church congregations primarily, they secured Jonations of $10 to $500 from 175 I I "stockholders." By November 1P65, they held the __ J ■ mortgage. . But the contributions covered only the down I payment. Seeking resources or the remaimngB I monthly payments, the group iound itself upB I against a stone wall. "There just is no state mon-B I ey legislated for facilities of this type for 17 toB I 21-year-old youth,". Mrs. Hooper says sadly. The stone wall was scaled by the State Divi-B I sion of Vocational Rehabilitation which offeredB I a financial subsidy if the house was used for theB I former mental patients. WITH Housing agreed.B I and Edward Charron, then a child care workerB I at the State Hospital, was hired as "house par-B ; 'Ypsüanti State Hospital was able to place lol I men in the house on Kingsley St. as soon as itB I opened in April, 1967. While there is no "waitmgB I list" as such, social workers at the state hospiB I tal can immediately identify patients to fiL open-B I in 'fi when they occur. A gift from a church conB 1 gregation in Detroit, whose pastor had_been_miej of the original stockholdeis oí WITH Housing, enabled the latter group to open the larger facil ity -n Packard last July and admit more aftercare patients. Last September, Charron more than doubled the number of former patients served by leasing a second house at 1444 Washington Heights. He and his wife Shirley and their three small children live there with 16 men, while his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Charron, live with the 13 on Packard. The homes accommodate different needs. The eider Charrons run their home on a "family" basis. "The men share rooms and are responsible for keeping them clean; everyone is expected to report for dinner and keep an 11 p.m. curfew on weekdays, 1 a.m. on weekends, unless permission is granted otherwise," Charron exL plains. In contrast, the house on Washington Heights has five apartments accommodating two to four men. The three-room complexes have kitchens where the men can fix their own meals, and I neatness is strictly a personal prerogative. There are no curfews. Operating a halfway house takes special kinds of talents, like the knack for nosing out bargains in rummage sales and auctions. Charron outfitted the entire 10-room house for under $2,500 - including 20 beds for $5 apiece from the University warehouse. Shirley Charron held the grocery bill at Washington Heights to $9,000 a year, and rent ran $475 per month on Packard and $650 per month on Washington Heights. Charron's "salary" during the past 18 months was the state money left over: $5,000. In addition to balancing budgets and scouting jobs for the men, the. young manager spends two to three hours a day just in conversation with the former patients. Also valuable are the weekly group therapy sessions; "A man may listen to advice or criticism from Kimball or me, but when it comes from his peers," Charron says, "he really pays attention." The halfway house environment often fosters radical changes within the residents. One former patiënt, 38 years old, had spent the past 17 years in the state hospital on his second admission. "When he carne here, he used to carry all of his belongings - shaving stuff, instant coffee, etc. in a little brief case wherever he went. He set it under the chair against his legs during dinner and left it beside the tub when he took a shower. This possessiveness is common among persons who have become thoroughly institutionalized," Charron says. "Now this same man - who had never held a job in his life, is working full and part-time at two places. He has a driver's license and car and takes himself to work and back. His is one of the most manifest recoveries." The halfway houses do not boast a 100 per cent success record. In fact, statistics over the entire two-year operational span would show that half the men and women have had to return to the hospital. At the Packard house however, the "fail" rate has dropped to six per cent. "Before, if a former patiënt didn't adapt to the halfway house, the only recourse was to return him to the hospital. Now, if it appears that his environment has been too structured or voo open, he is transferred to a different house instead," Charron says. For this reason, WITH Housing, Inc. is conducting a fundraising drive to finance a second house for women in addition to their present one at 1706 Pauline. "We need a minimum nf $io,nno lor the down payment," Miss Rothmeyer estimates. "Then allocations from the state will again take care of the monthly mortgage payments." Donations for the fourth halfway house are being accepted at the WITH Housing, Inc. office, 303 S. División. The halfway house approach, enabling residents to "meet the community marginally while retaining access to a treatment-type environment," has proven not only personally advantageous to the former patiënt but economically advantageous to the public. "Not only is it cheaper in actual costs for the patiënt to be in family care than in the state hospital," Charron says, "but many of them are now paying enough in federal income tax alone to cover what I'm being paid for them."