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to promote civic engagement in the Philadelphia region.Philly fire stirs concerns over in-home mental health treatment
Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 5:11 pm - by Alan Tu. Filed under: Community.
A Philadelphia fire this week has sparked a debate over whether mental health patients in need of supervision should be allowed to live residential apartment buildings. The fire at the Henry on the Park complex (7901 Henry Ave) in the Roxborough section of the city is being blamed on a woman who may have tried to commit suicide by setting fire to her unit. She survived but the fire left three people injured.
Aerial of Henry on the Park apartment complex
WPVI reports that Project Transition has leased 17 apartments to be used for its clients who have been diagnosed with mental health problems. Channel 6 quotes one woman on her observation of the program’s residents. “I have seen people walking around like they’re medicated and out of it.” Some residents have already stated to management that they don’t want Project Transition residents there.
Exterior of damaged apartment in Roxborough / Image credit: Chestnut Hill Local Newspaper
The Chestnut Hill Local newspaper reports that Project Transition will meet with the apartment’s owner next week. Here’s an excerpt from the C.H. Local’s blog.
Project Transition CEO Luke Crabtree told the Local today that he understood the outpouring of anger from residents and that he was “running to the issues, not away from it.”“We don’t know what went on in that apartment, but it doesn’t sound good,” Crabtree said in a phone interview.Crabtree said that he would meet next week with representatives from Fairfield Properties LP, the company that owns Henry on the Park, and officers of the newly formed Henry on the Park tenants association.
Here’s a good description of why Project Transition believes apartment residency can be beneficial for its clients. This is an excerpt taken from its web page describing how it works.Each Project Transition (PT) community is comprised of approximately 25 persons who live in apartments within the same complex. Three roommates share a furnished two-bedroom apartment. Most neighbors of Project Transition members are ordinary tenants and not associated with our program. This reflects social reality, reinforces normalcy and responsibility, and reduces stigma. At most of our sites, two nearby apartments serve as the activity hub of the program – this is where community meetings, group therapies and workshops, and individual sessions occur. There is also a computer for PT members. We provide transportation services, public transportation is nearby, and some of our members have cars. Our staff team is on-site weekdays until 9:00 p.m. All of our sites have staff coverage on the weekend and our 24/7 crisis response system is as close as the phone.
July 19th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
I am writing in response to your article about, “A Philadelphia fire this week has sparked a debate over whether mental health patients in need of supervision should be allowed to live residential apartment buildings.”
I am disgusted by this article. I am a mental health professional from Illinois who has seen regular discrimination of my clientele for years. I have been working with people with serious mental illness for the past 12 years. My clients are more often the victims of crime than the perpetrators. Articles such as these just perpetuate that stigma and discrimination. I am sorry that the fire was set. However, there are far more non mentally ill individuals setting fires. There is no reason to target the mentally ill. There are several people with no diagnosis of mental illness committing suicide. My neighbor knows someone just last month who set himself on fire to commit suicide at the age of 16. He was not mentally ill. Who can the media blame that on?? It seems that people just want the mentally ill locked and chained to the walls of the institutions just like the good ‘ole days. All in the name of FEAR!! Wake up people!!!
July 20th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
A 16 year-old commits suicide by setting himself on fire and a mental health professional says “He was not mentally ill”. I’m glad this “professional” is in Illinois and not in Pennsylania. I’d hate to think they could be responsible for the well-being of someone I know!
July 21st, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I am a tenant at Henry on the Park, and a resident of the building where the fire occurred. I was not displaced from my home, but many friends and neighbors have been forced into temporary housing or other units at the complex. Some have broken their leases and left. I cannot adequately express the atmosphere of fear, confusion and depression that characterizes this community. Many tenants came here to escape blighted communities elsewhere in the city: Project Transition introduced many of the same conditions that we thought we had left behind. Tenants had already begun questioning the management concerning a host of lesser problems (loitering, sleeping on benches, urination in public places, verbal conflicts with neighbors, harassment) when the fire took place. The management, which has provided deteriorating services to tenants since Fairfield Properties took over last year, responds to questions with truculence, obstruction and counter-accusations. There has been no expression of sympathy from management for the tenants whose lives have been ruined.
What are the remedies? I had originally thought that a culling of the more difficult and dangerous PT clients, together with 24/7 supervision by PT, would address the problems. I now tend to agree that no solution short of the program’s leaving will suffice to restore confidence and a sense of security. The needs of the few were placed above the needs of the many, with disastrous results. The Tenants’ Association will try to bring collective action to bear in order to at least get answers for the tenants concerning the fire and the serious safety and security issues that exist at the complex. Then we will try to turn the deterioration around. Can we ever restore the tranquility and comfort that residents had experienced at this community before Fairfield Properties took over? Only time will tell; but I struggle to sustain my optimism.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I am also a resident of the building where the fire occurred. I was lucky - my apartment sustained slight water and smoke damage.
It doesn’t take a PhD in Psychology to know that there are various degrees of mental illness, and that mental illness can manifest itself in myriad ways. What was clear - weeks before the fire - was that some of the Project Transition patients were either so severely disturbed or so heavily medicated that anyone with eyes to see would know that they were not ready to be incorporated into this community without intensive supervision, sometimes on a 24-hour basis. In fact, there was often no supervision at all after business hours. These seriously ill patients needed and deserved better. It should have been equally clear that the woman who set the fire was one of those people.
As a teacher with 36 years of experience, I liken this situation to mainstreaming students with difficulties - autism, serious emotional problems - into regular class rooms. If the student is ready, it works quite well, but any wise supervisor would need to know when a given student is not ready for such an experience. Likewise, the level supervision of Project Transition should enable its directors to know it’s clients well enough to know who is ready to be incorporated into a outside residential community and who is not yet ready. Either they didn’t know - or didn’t care to know - about this particular problem, and now this complex has been seriously damaged, as has the life of the patient who caused the fire, by their lapse in judgement.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Originally several residents wanted to support Project Transition (PT) and their mission with changes to their procedures. After talking to a representative of Chestnut Hill Village, where the worst of PT patients were shipped out to (guess where!) Henry on the Park, we are changing our minds. PT is irresponsible and negligent about their responsibilities. Check out their website and see if patients with their description are ready to live without supervision between 5pm and 9am! There are some who are prejudiced about mental illness here, but most of the people who object to PT presence are addressing unacceptable BEHAVIOR not people.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:46 am
I recieved a memo about a meeting being held this Thurday. I was just wondering who will be allowed to attend this meeting? I dont need names, I just want to know if it’s only going be a select few of people, or is anyone who lives in the building allowed to attend. Also, what time is it being held?
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I am writing in response to your article, “Philly fire stirs concerns over in-home mental health treatment.” I am not a resident at Henry on the Park but I am a tenant, and as such I am deeply troubled by this article. This situation creates many justifiable fears and concerns with the well-being and safety of each resident along with the members of Project Transition. Individuals with various levels of mental health and rehabilitation issues need to have successfully completed an appropriate program suitable for their specific needs and then a qualified health care professional can make an informed decision that this individual is ready to move to the next step.
Based on each individual’s progress, they can then be “mainstreamed.” First, the client should be placed in an assisted living life style where they can learn to take care of themselves and their surrounding environment, i.e. cooking, cleaning, shopping, interact with others, maintaining a job, etc. At this point the organization can begin to determine who is ready to move into a community setting.
Obviously this was not the case here. This individual had two episodes—an attempted suicide, followed with starting the fire, proving that she was a danger to herself and others. Unfortunately it took the latter course to attract everyone’s attention. It is true we don’t know everything about everyone who lives near us, but Project Transition knew these people and Henry on the Park was well aware of the type of organization it chose to lease apartments to. Therefore, this could have been prevented. I feel that both the management of Henry on the Park and Project Transition were negligent to the community and the participants. Project Transition should be certain about who is ready to move into residential communities and who is not. If I were a tenant I would need to meet with management and Project Transition to address my concerns and fears. I would no longer feel safe for my children, family, visitors and myself.
I don’t want to see anyone lose their home; however this is not a safe environment for all involved. This outcome has hurt the members of Project Transition and loyal tenants of Henry on the Park.
July 25th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Joanne makes a number of excellent points. It is true that decisions made by both Henry on the Park’s management and the Project Transition staff hurt established tenants and Project Transition members alike. One cannot foresee all of the consequences of our actions; but the danger signs in this situation were glaring. The apartment management held the well-being of hundreds of tenants in their hands, and they passed that responsibility to Project Transition. Project Transition, in turn, made some highly questionable decisions about the readiness of their members to function within the program that they had established–and the well-being of all the tenants was again jeopardized. Was it greed, fear, shortsightedness, misplaced confidence, or a combination of these motives that set this crisis in motion? Currently, while Project Transitions has been willing to meet with the Tenants’ Association, the Henry on the Park management will not even speak to the tenants–individually or as a group. So it appears that no answer to the issues of responsibility, culpability and compensation will be forthcoming from Henry on the Park or Fairfield Properties.