Representatives Murphy and Biggert Reintroduce Section 811 Reform

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Representatives Christopher Murphy (D-CT) and Judy Biggert (R-IL) have
reintroduced the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act (H.R.
5772).   The bill, which passed the House last year but never found
traction in the Senate, would reform the Department of Housing and Urban
Development’s (HUD’s) Section 811 Supportive Housing Program for Persons
with Disabilities. Section 811 provides housing for people with physical
or developmental disabilities or people with chronic mental illness who
are 18 years of age or older and have very low incomes (at or below 50
percent of the area median income).  Section 811 participants may live
in supportive housing units developed and owned by non-profit
organizations, or they may receive tenant-based rental assistance that
helps them rent decent, accessible and safe housing in the private
rental market.  Tenants pay 30 percent of their adjusted income
(approximately $200 per month) for rent which ensures affordability for
those receiving SSI benefits.
For years, HUD has treated the Mainstream Voucher program as traditional
Section 8 vouchers, administered by Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) for
many different low income populations on their waiting lists.  Even
though these vouchers were supposed to go to persons with significant
disabilities who needed supportive housing, HUD did not put a tracking
mechanism into place to ensure that this occurred until 2005.
Disability housing advocates believe that many non-disabled people and
persons with non-significant disabilities (who could use traditional
Section 8 vouchers) were receiving Mainstream vouchers. This created
fiscal burdens for the small 811 program because renewal of the
Mainstream Vouchers must come off the top of the 811 budget every year.
For example, the FY 2009 budget requires that over $87 million be used
for renewal of Mainstream Vouchers. This would leave only $150 million
for the production of new units.
The bill will shift fiscal responsibility for the Mainstream Housing
Choice Voucher Program to the Section 8 budget where it belongs.
Although funded and renewed from 811 appropriations, these Mainstream
Housing Choice Vouchers have never created new permanent supportive
housing units and are not targeted to people with the most serious and
long-term disabilities. By shifting the Mainstream voucher funding to
the traditional Section 8 program, all Section 811 funds currently used
for Mainstream voucher renewal will be freed up for production of new
units via the Project-Based Contracts (PRAC) Demonstration.
Currently, only Section 811 funds can be used to construct housing units
for non elderly people with disabilities.  The new bill would re-write
the law to allow for other funds to be combined with Section 811
funding, thereby increasing the number of units built. The PRAC
Demonstration program will “fast-track” and sustain the creation of
thousands of new permanent supportive housing units every year by
leveraging new set-asides of supportive housing units in federal Low
Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) properties. The PRAC program will also
provide a rental subsidy to reduce rents to affordable levels for people
receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) in a small but significant
percentage of the hundreds of thousands of units that are routinely
created every year through the LIHTC program administered by states and
local jurisdictions.
FMI: To read the bill or track its progress, go to
http://thomas.loc.gov/

and search for bill number HR 1675.

A Guide to Getting Through Tough Economic Times

This guide provides practical advice on how to deal with the effects financial difficulties can have on your physical and mental health -- it covers:

• Possible health risks
• Warning signs
• Managing stress
• Getting help
• Suicide warning signs
• Other steps you can take

……

A Guide to Getting Through Tough Economic Times

Peer Support for People Who Live with Mental Illness: The Launching of this Blog

Hello to you all....and welcome. By creating this blog, I hope to create a safe spot where people with mental health conditions will feel free to come and share with others. As you might know all too well, we all go through our ups and downs, our good days and our bad days, and our steps forward and our steps back. I am here for you as you go through these trials and tribulations, and I think you will find that others will be here for you too. Please feel free to publish, morning, noon, and night...but be aware that I have this blog on a setting where I leaf through comments, just to keep out people who might have some bad intentions (such as making fun of people with mental illnesses)...so it might take a few hours before your comments get published.
I want to let you know that I come from a school of thought where I have learned that recovery from mental illness IS possible. "Recovery" is not meant in the classic sense of the word--meaning "cured"--but is meant in the sense that people with mental illness are able to live meaningful, fulfilling lives out in the community, able to function without their mental illness impairing them on a daily basis. This is a state that is not easy to achieve, but one that is well worth striving for. I am currently in the midst of my personal journey toward recovery, and am learning different things about myself every day that help me to take steps further and further in a positive direction. Even making this blog is one of those steps. Reaching out to others and socializing--even online--is a great way to help yourself achieve recovery. I encourage you all to share various steps that you may encounter along your own personal journey to recovery--what works and what doesn't, what helps and what hinders. It can even just start with what makes you get out of bed in the morning! I am looking forward to hearing from you and listening to what you have to say. Each person's journey is important, and we all have a lot to contribute to each others' recovery journeys. Please comment below--let me know who you are, and what's on your mind……

Peer Support for People Who Live with Mental Illness: The Launching of this Blog

Over 120 Patient Advocacy Groups Support Legislation To Eliminate Two-Year Medicare Waiting Period

The Coalition to End the Two-Year Wait for Medicare, over 120 organizations who work to ensure access to health care for people with disabilities, enthusiastically supports the introduction of Ending the Medicare Disability Waiting Period Act of 2009, S.700 and H.R.1708, which would eliminate the unjustifiable two-year delay in coverage for people with severe disabilities who are waiting to become eligible for Medicare coverage.
"Nearly 40 percent of people with disabilities are without health insurance coverage at some point during their wait for Medicare; 24 percent have no health insurance during this entire period. Many cannot afford to pay COBRA premiums to maintain coverage from their former employer, and private coverage on the individual market is unavailable or too expensive for this high-cost population," the Coalition wrote to Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Representative Gene Green (D-TX)…..

Technorati Tags: Medicare,disability,waiting period

Over 120 Patient Advocacy Groups Support Legislation To Eliminate Two-Year Medicare Waiting Period

Combating Weight Gain Caused By Antipsychotic Treatments

Antipsychotic drugs, such as olanzapine (Zyprexa), risperidone (Risperdal) and quetiapine (Seroquel), are commonly used to treat psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, but also bipolar disorder and even behavioral problems related to dementia.

Combating Weight Gain Caused By Antipsychotic Treatments

Unfortunately, the weight gain commonly experienced with antipsychotic treatment is an important side effect for many patients, and causes many patients to discontinue their use leading to even further problems. Biological Psychiatry, in its April 1st issue, is now publishing a new study that has evaluated an add-on treatment to potentially reduce treatment-associated weight gain.
In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, Dr. James Roerig and colleagues evaluated the effect of modafinil on olanzapine-associated weight gain in normal volunteer subjects. Modafinil is a drug currently used to increase wakefulness in individuals with sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy. All of the subjects received olanzapine, and half also received modafinil treatment while the other half instead received placebo. After three weeks, although the body mass index was increased in both groups, those receiving olanzapine/placebo showed significantly greater weight increase than those receiving olanzapine/modafinil…

Help Support the Recovery of Michigan Housing

Thanks and a Hat Tip to Nelson Grit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOAfJzkOGIo.

Here is a link to a video of Lieutenant Governor Cherry and Secretary of State Land promoting the Living In Michigan Income tax checkoff. Please feel free to share it with your friends and contacts.
If we raise $100,000 each year for three years, the option will remain. Experience suggests that each dollar draws down an additional $11, meaning that the $100,000 will add $1.1 million dollars in investment in affordable housing and community development.

Plan Lifetime Assistance Network of Northeast Ohio

Art, Poetry and Mental Health Recovery Project 

Plan Lifetime Assistance Network of Northeast Ohio

Art is an effective tool that impacts public attitudes and stigma about mental illness, a misunderstood disease.  The mental health field recognizes the negative impact of stigma.  This project will help prevent and reduce stigma toward mental illness by displaying art from adults on the road to recovery from mental illness.  This traveling art exhibit will be in various venues throughout Cuyahoga County beginning in 2009.  The images will be selected from artwork created by PLAN members working with local art therapists and artists.  This project, funded in part by Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, The Maltz Foundation and Ridgecliff Foundation, has an opportunity to reach and educate thousands to help reduce the stigma associated with mental illness…..

Gaining Insight

OPPRESSION COMES IN MANY SHAPES SIZES AND COLORS: PART II

Gaining Insight

Sorry for the delay, but this post compliments the photo essay in the post below (please view before reading on). I am always pondering the many complexities of mental illness stigma. One topic that I often dwell on is the history of oppression (in all societies). "Oppression is defined as the use of power to disempower, marginalize, silence or otherwise subordinate one social group or category, often in order to further empower and/or privilege the oppressor. Social oppression may not require formally established organizational support to achieve its desired effect; it may be applied on a more informal, yet more focused, individual basis." Most of us have experienced or learned about various types of oppression. I would like to outline a few in order to compare any similarities and differences…..

Health Articles | Mental Health Care "Consumers" Take Greater Role in Their Recovery | Miller-McCune Online Magazine

 

Health Articles | Mental Health Care "Consumers" Take Greater Role in Their Recovery | Miller-McCune Online Magazine

Fred Frese was a young Marine Corps officer and graduate student when he started experiencing the psychotic delusions of paranoid schizophrenia. He was hospitalized, the first of what would be 11 such institutionalizations. But he also managed to complete graduate school and earn a doctorate in psychology from Ohio University. He married and had four children, and 12 years after his first hospitalization, he became a chief psychologist for the Ohio mental health system.

That was 30 years ago. Today, Frese is director of the Summit County Recovery Project in Akron, Ohio, and one of the most articulate and outspoken national advocates of mental health recovery programs.

A crucial part of that recovery is battling the stigma of mental illness, he said. About 6 percent of the population, or one in 17 Americans, suffers from a serious mental illness. One in five families are affected…….

Mental Health recovery in 12 steps | icyou | The source for health videos

 

Mental Health recovery in 12 steps | icyou | The source for health videos

Added: February 4, 2008 | Time 10:55 | Views: 3,739

mental health recovery in 12 steps

a video about the process of recovery from mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizoaffective and ptsd.