Bradford County plans to re-open housing facility
Published: July 17, 2010
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Review Photo/JAMES LOEWENSTEIN Spurred by the current housing crunch, county officials intend to re-open this facility for mental health consumers at 12 Mix Ave. in Towanda.
TOWANDA - After being closed for more than a year, the county is planning to re-open its transitional residential facility at 12 Mix Ave. in Towanda, which houses up to eight people with mental health problems, county officials said.
The county has been motivated to reopen the facility partly because local officials are starting to see mentally ill people lose their housing during the county's current housing crunch, said Bill Blevins, Bradford County Human Services Director.
About a month ago, the county began to re-use the facility when it moved four employees into the building who staff Bradford County's Community Hospital Integration Project Programs (CHIPP), which works to keep mentally ill people out of psychiatric hospitals, and the McKinney-Vento homeless program, which is a federally funded housing program that assists homeless people who have a disability, such as mental illness, said Ron Schell, director of the county's mental health program.
Until now, the four employees had been working in an office that the county had rented on Main Street in Athens, he said.
The facility at 12 Mix Ave. provides transitional housing for people who are being released from the state mental hospital in Clarks Summit, or who are in danger of going there, Blevins said.
The facility at 12 Mix Ave. was closed because some of the clients in the building had damaged the facility, according to Blevins.
Since the damage occurred, the building was renovated using state funds that were provided through the CHIPP program, Blevins said.
The renovations consisted of painting inside the building, installing new carpeting, and creating an office space for the four employees, Schell said.
The state, which had purchased the building for the county, now wants to see the building supervised 24 hours per day, seven days per week, Blevins said.
To comply with the state directive, the Bradford County commissioners on Thursday voted to advertise for proposals from companies that would provide management and 24-hour staffing at 12 Mix Ave., Blevins said.
The company that is hired would generally provide one employee at a time to staff the facility, who would assist the clients in transitioning to more permanent housing, Schell said.
The county will pay for the company that is hired using state funds provided through the CHIPP program, Blevins said.
Until now, there has been "no supervision really" of clients in the building, Blevins said.
Schell said moving the four employees to 12 Mix Ave. will save rent money. The employees will also be able to monitor the day-to-day activities in the building, he said.
James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or e-mail: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.
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