Sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence. Working in the field of chronic mental illness, I encounter clients dissatisfied with their housing on average of once a week. The majority of my clients reside in boarding homes, both licensed and unlicensed. I am using the State of Texas’ definition of a boarding home as a facility which houses three or more persons with disabilities or elderly persons who are unrelated to the owner…and provides community meals, light housework, meal preparation, transportation, grocery shopping, money management, laundry services, or assistance with self-administration of medication but does not provide personal care services to those persons.
Complaints I hear range from roommate bickering to neglect and abuse cases that required reporting to authorities.
Issues within boarding homes have not been restricted to a singular social worker’s clients. Dallas/Ft. Worth has seen similar struggles including unclean and poorly supervised boarding homes. A 2007 assessment of 276 homes found that one in three required intervention. 2006 testimony in El Paso cited sixteen men with mental illness living in 500 square feet with a single bathroom.
The state of Texas passed legislation in 2009 creating the Texas Boarding House Model Standards in order to ensure that housing was safe and adequate and to reduce client experiences with abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
Despite such legislation being enacted, only five major cities in Texas have adopted their own ordinances regulating boarding home facilities. These cities include Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth, El Paso, Houston, and San Antonio. Even with ordinances being in place, loopholes and evasion persist. Many boarding homes remain unlicensed and others remain out of compliance with building codes. This has resulted in deadly incidents such as a fire in a San Antonio boarding home which left four of thirteen residents dead. Houston struggles to identify the number of boarding homes that exist in their community in addition to unresolved questions on regulating them. Such living conditions persist due to lack of options.
Texas ranks 50th in the nation for mental health funding. The number of beds in hospital facilities has rapidly declined in recent years resulting in persons being discharged from facilities at a faster rate and often without a home to return. Combined with the limited financial assistance persons with mental illness receive results in limited housing options. Enter the boarding home, often the last resort for housing when people with mental illness face homelessness.
The majority of boarding homes are clustered around the major cities in Texas, which have developed governing ordinances. However, boarding homes do exist and have increased in rural areas. Research has resulted in little information regarding oversight in rural communities. Despite the existence of ordinances, many are poorly enforced or contain extensive time allotments to allow a house to bring their facility up to code. Alternatively many homes are grandfathered out of meeting current building codes based on what year the facility was established and what building codes required at that time. Lack of enforcement doesn’t come from a callous place, but rather the same that created this situation: limited mental health resources.
If we continue to uphold the ideals of a least-restrictive-environment without proper support or funding unscrupulous boarding homes in our communities will continue to increase. Exploitation and neglect will persist among our clients with mental illness until the state or our individual communities take up the torch of enforcement.
When exploring this issue from a social justice perspective, people often turn to the idea that some home is better than homelessness. However, I argue that this is flawed. Should we continue to debate the lesser of evils or should we take it upon ourselves to seek better solutions?
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_4495062
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/City-looks-to-regulate-group-homes-4639568.php
http://www.mhadallas.org/page/operation-healthy-reunions.cfm
http://www.sanantonio.gov/Portals/0/Files/Boarding%20Homes/proposedOrdinance.pdf
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/City-officials-say-burned-boarding-house-should-3797465.php
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To whom it may concern:
I live at a home run by Family Endeavors, who uses there claim that they’re mainly funded by private sources so they don’t have to play by the rules for mentally ill people and how they treat us. For instance we had a crisis at Progressive lodge where a young man was clawing into his face and was self harming. I did not realize that Danielle Stevens was not on call but in a panic I called her for assistance. I was practically blessed out by her for calling, and no concern for the client who was self harming was shown, they may threaten my housing here over it and I’ve been here almost four and one half years. I like my house mates and where I live and don’t wish to move, but they use the fact of there status to threaten us all the time if we don’t jump when they say. They also prefer for us to put program fee on the checks, so were not established as renters thereby by passing the renters laws never mine the laws regulating housing the mentally ill. All I wanted to do was help and was blessed out and now I may be threatened again. An atmosphere of fear and intimidation being created by the staff, who don’t reside with us. Like snakes in the grass they do everything to circumvent the laws and the regulations. And feel they can throw you out into the streets on a whim, somethings got to be done to control this situation, they also look unfavorably on whistleblowers. Help!!!!
Good morning,
I am sorry to hear about what is clearly a distressing situation for you, and understand that it can put you in an awkward situation. You do have the option of filing a complaint with the state, and can often remain anonymous through that process. I wish you the best of luck, and have included the link to the state’s department to help you file should you choose.
https://www.dshs.state.tx.us/hfp/complain.shtm
Respectfully,
Courtney
San Antonio Family Endeavors that I mentioned in my earlier post is at 535 Bandera Road, P.O. Box 28210, San Antonio, Tx 78228, 210-431-6466 and is administered by the CEO Travis Pearce, boss of Danielle Stevens whom blessed me out for calling in an emergency. Also ther’s 210-208-5700. The mental abuse has got to stop, the throwing out of people on a whim has got to stop, the treating of people any way you want, mentally ill people that is, has got to stop, the getting out of following the codes and laws as pertains to the mentally ill has got to stop, the running of it based on fear and intimidation has got to stop, because you claim no affiliation with HUD or the government and your privately funded has got to stop. people have got to know the truth and this must be put out there. It’s got to be known that you can not do with people as you like based on a weak contract. There must be some say over this somewhere, and the staff can not just run roughshod over you because of their claims of being independent of the laws and regulations based on their funding.