About a year ago, chronically homeless people in Guilford County began moving from the street into permanent housing, with the help of housing support teams, as part of a state-funded pilot program. Dozens of my homeless friends have moved into housing. That is great and exciting, and I am thankful. However, as part of the program, they were promised supportive services, such as treatment for addiction disorders and mental illness, and they are supposed to have the help and assistance of “enhanced providers” in obtaining needed services. But that has not been the reality for many of my friends, and they have suffered as a result.
I would like to thank YES! Weekly’s Jordan Green for his article, “Formerly homeless clients find services lacking,” an honest and in-depth account of the serious and troubling issues with the “enhanced providers” contracted by Guilford Center to provide services for clients of the housing support program — including failure to provide contracted services. Jordan’s article discusses audits, failure rates, deficiencies, corrective action plans, Medicaid/Medicare payment abuse, and more. Until now, I haven’t seen anything in the media about the enhanced provider issues. I appreciate YES! Weekly’s attention to this story.
» Read it here.
***Let me be clear: My friends and I have nothing but praise for the housing support team (Mitch and his staff) who are responsible for the housing piece — literally moving our friends from the street into their new homes. And they do so much more than that — stepping in to try to fill the gaps as much as possible, and seeming to work 24/7. God bless them all. Mitch is universally loved and appreciated. All of the issues that I’m aware of have been with the enhanced service providers. Read Jordan’s article to find out more about that.
