Congressman Danny Davis Awards A Safe Haven Foundation A $2 Million Federal Grant to Open A Behavioral Healthcare Center in Chicago’s West Side North Lawndale Community
For Immediate Release:
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Media@ASafeHaven.org
(Chicago, Illinois) — July 7, 2022 — A Safe Haven Foundation (ASH) is proud to announce a $2 million federal grant secured by Congressman Danny Davis to open up an ASHF Behavioral Healthcare Center at their Corporate flagship location in Chicago’s North Lawndale Community. The funds will be applied towards converting and staffing the now-closed Chicago Innovation Award Winning Covid-19 Medical Respite into A Safe Haven’s Behavioral Healthcare Center (ASH BHC). It is scheduled to be opened in the Fall/Winter of 2022.
The ASH BHC will be the latest addition and component of A Safe Haven’s fully integrated delivery system, which currently includes services such as individualized case management, substance abuse drug treatment, nutrition, education, job training, employment, and transitional, supportive, and permanent affordable housing.
The addition of the ASH BHC will close the gap for the growing pent-up demands for mental and behavioral healthcare services by people living in one of the most socially and economically distressed communities and populations hit hardest by the opioid epidemic, mental health and homeless-related issues, now made worse by the pandemic.
The new ASH BHC will be strategically located on the premises of A Safe Haven’s 140,000 square foot four-acre facility located in Chicago’s impoverished North Lawndale Community and near some of Chicago’s top safety net hospitals, cook county jail, the medical district, and two veteran hospitals.
The funding will help cover the cost of professional and peer-to-peer behavioral healthcare staffing and services. ASH has been at the forefront of understanding the importance of providing individualized assessments and comprehensive and holistic data-driven services designed to give individuals in crisis access to a multi-disciplinary team of professionals that will be able to assess all their social determinants of health and connect them to appropriate coordinated services. ASH is uniquely designed to address and heal the root causes of complex health, nutritional, social, academic, and economic challenges, consistently fostering long-term success.
Since 1994, A Safe Haven has been recognized as the pioneering architect of one of the country’s vertically integrated social, economic, and housing models. Today ASH serves as a trusted anchor organization in Chicago, serving and meeting the needs of over 5,000 Chicagoland’s most vulnerable and homeless populations annually.
“The community project concept is instrumental in promoting unification and connectivity, especially among human service entities who sometimes work together on problems and issues to be very productive. This type of funding enhances output and generates results that otherwise may not be realized. A Safe Haven has a long record and great history of providing meaningful services to their clients and the community as a whole,” said Congressman Danny Davis.
“We cannot thank Congressman Danny Davis enough for this catalytic level of support. Our commitment to him, the community, taxpayers, and those we serve alike, is that ASH BHC will do everything we can as trusted stewards to amplify our efforts as a proven model committed to successfully transforming the lives of people in crisis by providing them the tools and services, they need to be successful and independent in a sustainable manner. Our long-term vision has been to help close the gap between institutional healthcare and community-based behavioral healthcare services by linking, leveraging, and aligning our mutual efforts and collective resources on behalf of improving the lives of our common constituency. The pandemic exposed the gaps in the system and accelerated the already growing challenges with the opioid epidemic, mental health, and homelessness. It has made evident to most that community-based behavioral healthcare must be prioritized and easier to access, especially within the communities where people live and need these services the most. We have lots of lessons learned. Undoubtedly, our front-line efforts and the work of others proven to be doing good work in the community must be considered part of the public healthcare infrastructure. As the fiduciaries and stewards of this funding, we hope to prove that a more compassionate, accountable, and integrated healthcare and community-based behavioral healthcare delivery system and model is in all of our best interest as – desired, doable and scalable.” – Neli Vazquez Rowland, President, and Co-Founder A Safe Haven Foundation.
The ASH BHC will be designed to address and improve overall results from community prevention, ongoing services for current residents of A Safe Haven, and an institutional healthcare aftercare perspective. The strategic outreach of the new ASH BHC to the community will be focused on raising awareness and encouraging referrals as a step down from healthcare, community, and government agency partners. The ASH BHC is committed to meeting and serving the multi-faceted needs of anyone that requires access to ongoing prevention and aftercare services on many levels.
The program aims to help mitigate and prevent more catastrophic consequences of unaddressed mental healthcare issues, improve overall outcomes, and achieve long-term recovery by utilizing evidence-based practices in the field, including abstinence-based programming. The new Behavioral Health Center targets vulnerable and homeless adults and/or adults at risk of developing substance use disorders (SUD), residents of Metropolitan Chicago, veterans, those living in poverty, women with children, and LGBTQ+ communities.
Among our many community and healthcare partners, ASH has strong linkages and partnerships with State, Federal, County, and City agencies, such as SUPR, US Department of Veterans Affairs, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, IL Department of Children and Family Services, Illinois Department of Human Services, Illinois Department of Corrections, Cook County Sheriff’s Office, to name a few. ASHF accepts referrals that reside in Chicago and the surrounding Counties and communities.
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About A Safe haven
A Safe Haven is a local, national, and internationally recognized 501(c)3 not-for-profit, social enterprise innovative private/public model designed to help people aspire, transform, and sustain their lives as they transition from homelessness to self-sufficiency with pride and purpose. A Safe Haven provides the tools for each individual to overcome the root causes of homelessness through a holistic, scalable model. A Safe Haven’s visible social and economic impact unites families, stabilizes neighborhoods, and creates vibrant, viable communities. For more information, please visit www.ASafeHaven.org.