Mental-health plan opts for homes over nursing homes - Rockford, IL - Rockford Register Star

David Robinson is adjusting to the silence, living alone for the first time in nearly 20 years.
His severe depression kept him from a steady job and a stable home. He bounced from friends’ couches to homeless shelters, he said. Last year, after a short stint in SwedishAmerican Hospital, he was released to the Fairview Nursing Plaza nursing home, where he stayed about six months.
He knew he didn’t want to stay there but had few options — a situation tailor-made for a new state program that helps people with mental illness find housing with appropriate support services.
‘It’s a little weird’
“We wouldn’t be sitting here right now having this conversation,” Robinson, 45, said in his new Rockford apartment. “We’d be sitting on a park bench talking about me being homeless. ... It’s a little weird, hard at first. It was so overwhelming, it brought tears to my eyes.”
Rockford’s Janet Wattles Center, primed with state and federal money, was the first in the state to be selected for the new program, called Rapid Reintegration.
“Many of these folks could benefit significantly from community placement if they had the housing support or subsidies and supportive services to help them live,” said Executive Director Frank Ware, who has been involved with the state’s long-term planning for nursing home issues for several years.
The goal, he said, is to catch people before they move into a nursing home or if they’ve been there less than a year…..

Mental-health plan opts for homes over nursing homes - Rockford, IL - Rockford Register Star