Welcome to Rumblestrap America Heilman.

This is Part Five in a series I produced for Vermont Public Radio called They Are Us

Inside Vermont's Mental Health Care System.

Today's show is called MyPad.

Welcome.

I think the designated agencies and caregivers in general or a lot of them

have this feeling that everybody's going to get better and they just need a little help for years, you know, and then they can live on their own.

So we don't need to build housing that's permanent for them, and there is some, but there's not enough so that people like my

son he ends up back in the hospital because he's not getting the support he

needs and there's one place in the whole state in Essex Junction called Mypad that has the level of care he needs.

That's Connie Stabler. Her son is 33 and he's been living with schizophrenia since he was 19.

He's been hospitalized nine times, sometimes for up to a year.

He's moved at least 10 times in 13 years.

He's lived in group homes and peer-supported homes and supervised therapeutic

settings and stepped-down programs for people leaving the hospital, and all of these

living arrangements have ended in crisis and hospitalization.

The available supervised housing in Vermont works well for some people, but not all, and all

of these options are temporary.

In other words, the expectation is you'll

stabilize then leave. The trouble is for people who have episodes of

mania or who become psychotic, none of these housing options are available long term, and they end up back in crisis

and back in the hospital, and it all starts all over.

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