PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

November 21, 2021

PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE HOUSING

The first of the year Saint Katharina Kasper Serenity Place, a Garden Court Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) Project, will be start receiving residents.  The facility will contain four one bedroom apartments, ten two bedroom apartments and four three bedroom apartments.  Presently there are thirty-one active PSH facilities in the state of Indiana and nine others in development which includes Serenity Place.

Permanent Supportive Housing is housing that combines permanent, affordable housing with services that help people live more stable, productive lives.  It is not a shelter.  There is no set time limit on length of stay.  Flexible human services designed to meet the special needs of an individual or family are combined with a stable and affordable place to live.  Services often available are therapy and counseling, case management, medical evaluation and treatment, education and life-skills, and job training.

The target group for PSH is the homeless, especially families.  It is estimated that 70% of today’s homeless suffer from some form of mental illness.  In the 1970’s the State of Indiana greatly reduced the population of the state mental hospitals and opened Comprehensive Mental Health facilities to address the needs of those who had been released.  Unfortunately, without supervision many who were no longer institutionalized failed to take their meds and joined the rolls of the homeless.   When Marshal County Sheriff Matthew Hassel recently spoke at the Plymouth Rotary Club he said that many incarcerated in the county jail suffered from mental issues and he was looking forward to the opening of Serenity Place as a way of reducing the jail’s population.

Matthew 8:28-9:1 is the story of Jesus healing two Gadarene demoniacs.   Because of their aggressive behavior they had been banned to live in the tombs.  When they confront Jesus he drives their demons into some nearby pigs that race headlong into the seas to only drown.  Being freed of their demons Jesus opened the possibility for the two men to restore fellowship with the people of their village.

Today we might describe the two men as suffering from mental illness.  People who are mentally ill suffer from all kinds of demons and delusions that haunt and torment them.  The two men’s aggressive behavior made them likely candidates for incarceration in a local jail or for institutionalized in a mental hospital under heavy sedation.

Just as Jesus restored the two Gadarene demoniacs to be productive members of society, the goal of Saint Katharina Kasper Serenity Place is to do the same.  It combines the permanent housing features of a mental hospital with the supportive services of a Comprehensive Mental Health Center.  Serenity Place is where persons might come to deal with the demons that possess them and deal with the issues that prevent them from being productive citizens.

Serenity Place is a positive start in Plymouth and Marshall County to provide constructive solutions to the homeless problem.  There is still much to be done.  There were many more people in Jesus’ time who were possessed with demons than the two he healed.  Serenity Place offers hope that something can be done to address helping the homeless of our community find a rich and meaningful life.