$1.5 million federal grant going to help the homeless

Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group will receive a $1.5 million federal grant to treat and provide job training and education to mentally ill homeless individuals, spokesman Kevin Porter said Thursday.

The organization will share the grant with the Colorado Department of Human Services, which will administer apartment rental vouchers to participants.

In addition to operating Pikes Peak Mental Health Center, Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group owns a construction company and a catering business, which the agency will use to help program participants learn vocational skills such as cooking and landscaping. Clients also will be able to earn a general education diploma.

“We’ll not just be getting them off the streets but also giving them a full range of mental health treatment and the skills to contribute to society again,” Porter said.

Under the grant from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, El Paso County will receive five annual installments, starting with $250,000 in January and increasing by $30,000 each year. The funding will cover 17 participants the first year. Five slots will be added each year thereafter, to serve at least 37 individuals.

Clients can stay in the program until they obtain employment or enough federal assistance to live independently. Porter said.

Officials estimate that as many as two-thirds of the 500 chronically homeless people sleeping in tents, cars and shelters in Colorado Springs suffer from mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and. Many of them turn to drugs and alcohol to cope with their lives.

Along with covering the cost of medications, counseling and employment services, the grant will pay for case workers to interact more with transients in the homeless camps, so they can try to coax those believed to have mental illness to get a diagnosis and join the program, Porter said.

“We do outreach, but this will allow us to spend more time on the streets, talking to people about the services available,” he said. “Until now, we’ve been limited by finances in what we can do.”

Porter said the organization served 56 people in 2008 through its existing homeless program, Shelter Plus Care.

Matt Parkhouse, a local psychiatric nurse and homeless advocate, said there is great need for mental health services for the homeless, and he welcomed the news.

“Anything would be an improvement to what we have now,” he said.