I live in washington state and i dont have any problems with my living arrangments rite now but i could see how i might need some housing arrangments after my mom and dad passes away. This is what i wonder about day and night can someone give me. A link or any peace of information that can lead me in the right direction.
Ps. I have meddicare strarting in july currently i have medicaid
Thanks for your time
In Canada ( I live just a bit north of you ) if you have a mental illness your therapist will help you find a good place to live such as semi-independent living or a group home. I’m sure there are other people who know more about this in the U.S. I wish you luck.
I I think that planning ahead is a very good idea. Yes, a good start would be to talk to a therapist or psychiatrist about housing options. Do you want to stay in Washington or are you willing to move to another state if they have better resources?
Anyways, people in the mental health system or the mental health field, including hospitals, clinics, private psychiatrists, therapists, private agencies, etc, are often interconnected with each other and share info and resources with each other. So once you start the ball rolling by contacting one of the resources I listed. They will give you leads to other places, and the other places will have information on housing. And so on. They will tell you who to call for info. Have you tried searching for housing on the internet. Maybe try Craigslist?
http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/states/washington/renting
I appreciate your input as always 77nick77 . I would be willing to move if accomdated housing wise better in another state. Do u know of any members on here that are living in group home or other goverment supported places. I contacted my therapist and he gave me lead to my countys housing authority .im looking for group homes that are for the me tally ill only if there is such place
Thanks
I have a Section 8 Voucher.
It took me years to come to the top of the waiting list. Before that, it took me years to find an open waiting list! Right, I contacted several Housing Authorities until I found some with open waiting lists.
One other thing that helped was contacting the local Organization for the Rights of the Disabled.
Jayster
My suggestion is to start a thread asking this question as the title. I know that some of the people on here live in mental health housing like group homes including me.
I’ve lived in three group homes over the course of my years with schizophrenia. They were pretty diverse in major, major ways.
I’ve lived in a group home in Oklahoma for fifteen years. I think just about anyone who is mentally ill can come here. You might want to shop around if you’re serious about moving in to one of these places. The quality of these places can vary, depending on who is staying at them at the time, but still, some are better than others. None of them are really terrible, but I know of one assisted living center way out in the country that only gets to go to town once a month. Where I am is out in the country, but we get to go to town once a week. These places aren’t resorts, but for the most part they are all right places to stay.
I wonder if there’s “master lists” in Washington? Maybe not, but you can look and ask. When I was looking around for mental health resources here in California I was given a list of what I was looking for. It’s called a “master list” and it’s very helpful and time-saving. When I was shopping around for a new psychiatrist that would take my medical coverage over thirty years ago when I was living in a group home, the staff gave me a list of about 9 or 10 psychiatrists in the area who would take patients who were on Medicaid.
Medicaid is California’s health coverage for the disabled, or the elderly. It might include people with limited income but I’m drawing a blank here and I don’t remember if you can get it awarded based on income. Medicaid is basically like Medicare but it is only for the state of California.
Then later on down the road when I was in a temporary crisis home in 1990 and it came time to leave the staff gave me a list of every Board & Care home in the city where I live. The list had about 35 different homes on it, so I could check out multiple houses and compare them on my own, and see which houses I liked. You can get your therapist to help you choose but to me it was comforting to know I had options to look at on my own.
A board and care home is a group home with no treatment. It’s just a large, safe (usually safe, anyway) house that will take around a dozen clients to live in. I was in one from 1990-95. It was owned by a middle-aged couple who did all the cooking and cleaning. They were not in the mental health field per se. They had no professional training in psychiatric field but they offered as much support as they could.
But it wasn’t a bad place to live.
In about 2012. I was seeing a therapist in a clinic. I saw her for about 5 months and Medicaid covered the cost. But then California went through a ressicon and Medicaid would not pay for seeing my therapist any more. So my therapist gave me a list of other therapists or counselors in my region who would charge on a sliding sale for people on limited income or charge very little.
My main point I started off to say is that when you’re looking for housing, or new therapists etc. There might be “master lists” of what you want that you can obtain that would make your searching easier and more organized. Washington may not have these, I don’t really know… But a simple question to who you’re seeing won’t hurt. I don’t know if this will help you, maybe not.
Do you have a counselor now, Nick?
Jayster
Yes, I see a psychiatrist and a therapist, but not very often. Why?
My guess is that my answer was pretty rambling, right?
No, your reply was great, Nick!
You said that they took away paying for your counselors, so I wondered where you were at in the present.
Jayster
OK, whew. I’m getting too tired these days, mentally and physically and I was afraid that I made no sense. But anyways, Califorina’s economy turned around and they started paying for a therapist for me again.
Thank you guys for your participation.how much do you guys pay for your group homes for each month? Or year.
I wont have much money left now after the SSA forces me to first switch insurance from medicaid (free) to medicare in washington and now they will automatically deduct the premium amount from my check each month. So thats why i want to know how much does one pay to live in group home?
One place charged me 1/3 of my income for rent. A different place took most of my SSDI and SSI checks for rent but left me some spending money for the month. Another place in 1980 billed me about $600.each month for a year but I never paid a cent and they never did anything about it. But don’t count on this happening to you. The place was a very unique place.
Another place I got in just on the cusp of them accepting a monthly SSI check for rent. After me, they charged literally $2000 a month for rent. I payed $400 a month. I came from a middle class background but all the other clients had parents who were doctors or lawyers or successful businessmen and they could afford that much money for rent. Yeah, I was the last client that they let in for $400. But most places take your income into consideration for the rent they charge.
Can this rent include meals or do u have to buy your own groceries? What type of living facility will you be searching for when your older;like assisted living or something
At my places they all served meals. But if you start contacting these places, you can simply ask them when you talk to them.
“What type of living facility will you be searching for when your older; like assisted living or something”
Yes.
Here’s a link for California, maybe you can type in mental health services act plus the name of your state?
http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/services/MH/Pages/MHSAHousing.aspx
@77nick77 gave you great advice, can’t add much to it.
I just tried looking into a room and board (versus room/board/food/nurses) and they quoted $550 per month with a request that I make nearly double that amount per month (he said “that’s what we like to see in our applicants”)…and that was for a shared room! As in, I would have had to share a bedroom with someone else, get no food, and shell out over five hundred bucks a month.