'They Saved My Life'

FOR YEARS, Dee Curry thrived in her job as a community-based outreach specialist, coordinating and connecting local residents to Washington, D.C.’s health services. “I never intended to become homeless,” Curry said. “My job meant everything to me. But, being empowered as a transgender woman, I encountered a lot of adversity and eventually suffered burnout.”

That burnout led to substance abuse, then incarceration, then homelessness. By the time she arrived at a hospital six years ago, Curry was suicidal. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she had been flitting between different places for temporary shelter. “People were not good to me. I was mistrustful of everyone,” she said.

The hospital psychiatrist finally persuaded Curry to contact Pathways to Housing DC, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., that implements the Housing First model among those with severe mental illness. Housing First offers the most vulnerable, chronically homeless people permanent housing and the supportive services to address mental and physical health, substance abuse, employment, education, and family reunification so that people can get back on their feet. Other models to alleviate homelessness may require program participants to be sober or eligible for employment in order to qualify for housing. The Housing First model reverses this logic.

“We provide housing first because we made a commitment to listen to the people we serve. We asked them what they wanted and needed. They almost always said ‘I need the housing, first, before I can work on other issues,” said Pathways to Housing DC executive director Christy Respress.

Pathways cites an 85 percent success rate for keeping people off the streets once they have housing coupled with permanent supportive services. Housing First also proves to be more cost effective: The research arm of the National Alliance to End Homelessness used information from several studies to demonstrate that permanent supportive housing costs are usually offset by eliminated emergency shelter costs, reduced police and jail costs, and significant reductions in health care (physical and behavioral) costs.

Once program participants are housed, they receive wraparound support services. Pathways’ multidisciplinary Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams—comprised of mental health specialists, psychiatrists, nurses, employment specialists, and addiction specialists—work for months or years to address an individual’s specific needs by connecting them to appropriate care and services. And Pathways partners extensively with other local organizations to leverage their unique offerings, such as job training, meal provisions, and furniture donations.

“They saved my life,” said Curry, 59, who is now clean and on a path to finding employment and, once again, becoming a community health and transgender advocate. “I don’t think I’d be here if I didn’t get the help I needed.”