Lakes Region Mental Health Center receives $2.5 million grant to serve people experiencing homelessness

LACONIA — With the award of a $2.5 million, five-year federal grant from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, Lakes Region Mental Health Center will launch new and expanded supports and services for those experiencing homelessness. Initiatives funded by the grant include a full-time, on-the-ground outreach worker, harm reduction supplies and education, housing, childcare and transportation vouchers and increased services to support people in recovery towards self-efficacy.

“Anecdotally, we all know that there is a real problem with homelessness in our area, but it's hard when you don't have the funding or necessarily the programs to support that,” said Christine Alvarez, chief quality officer at LRMHC. “This is an incredible opportunity to get people the help that they need.” 

“Our city-wide forums have illuminated that many experiencing homelessness are also struggling with their mental health and addiction,” Mayor Andrew Hosmer said in a statement. “Lakes Region Mental Health Center's history of leadership and expertise in these areas makes them the best choice to strengthen collaboration among stakeholders and make a significant impact."

To reduce the number of people experiencing homelessness in the region, the grant is aimed at three goals: to provide better outreach and on-the-ground engagement, to increase and improve treatment capacity and to remove barriers between people and stable care. 

Together, these goals use an interpersonal, relationships-based approach to humanize those experiencing homelessness and make it more likely they will be and remain interested in services, said Beth Vachon, director of development and public relations.

“We forget that these people who are experiencing homelessness are people,” Vachon said. “By treating them as people and understanding them and what they’ve gone through, you can begin to understand and see what they need for recovery.”

As part of the first goal, to increase outreach, LRMHC will hire a full-time outreach worker who will go out into the community and engage with people directly — whether they become patients or not. In addition to helping connect people with services, they will distribute harm-reduction supplies such as fentanyl test strips and narcan. The grant will also fund overdose education and narcan administration training.

Toward meeting the second goal of improving treatment outcomes, the grant will allow LRMHC to hire more care providers, increase motivational interview training and capacity, medication for alcohol use disorder, office-based opioid treatment and the addition of a peer-support specialist — someone with lived experience who can truly empathize with patients and increase retention rates.

Motivational interviews are a strategy that “creates more of an intrinsic motivation for people to sustain recovery,” Vachon said. Rather than imposing treatment on people, Alvarez added, they ask strategic questions to help people identify they have a problem and link them with the services and strategies they need. 

For the third goal of reducing obstacles that make accessing services difficult, the grant will fund housing, child care and transportation vouchers. Patients have a hierarchy of needs, Alvarez explained, and they are more likely to keep up with their treatment and goals if those basic needs are met. 

The grant goes into effect on Sept. 30, and awards LRMHC $500,000 each year for five years. 

“Collaboration and partnership serve as the cornerstones of our local strength,” said Asheena Miller, street outreach housing specialist with Belknap-Merrimack Counties Community Action Program in a media release. “With this grant, our community will be able to expand and strengthen support services for those experiencing homelessness.”

“The project will provide those who are experiencing homelessness with substance use and co-occurring mental health disorders increased access to services, in a comprehensive system of supports. Working together with partnering organizations during the five-year grant period, we will provide critical linkages improving recovery outcomes and resulting in healthier communities,” said Maggie Pritchard, LRMHC chief operating officer, in a statement.