Sonjia Kurosky, executive director of Samaritan Ministries in Winston-Salem (on left), offers a concrete image about the impact of the Homeless Opportunities and Treatment (HOT) Project since the free mental health program began six years ago.

“I knew one gentleman for years and I had never seen his teeth because I had never seen him smile,” Kurosky says. “All of a sudden, he started smiling. And he’s got a lovely set of teeth!”

The HOT Project was conceived by Liz Arnold, PhD, LCSW, of Wake Forest Baptist Health Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine (in photo on right). Arnold, who has worked in behavioral medicine for more than 20 years, says the idea was a basic one.

“In the community there are people on the streets, and if you look at the statistics, you know a large percentage of them have mental illness,” she says. “I was driving by these individuals and saying, ‘This is something we need to do something about. There has to be a way that we can offer these people some help.’”

HOT program

Arnold’s idea was to start a free mental health clinic to serve the homeless. She began reaching out for help, and found many people and agencies willing. The major HOT Project partners are:

• Samaritan Ministries, which provides free space for the clinic and even built offices for the HOT Project into its new headquarters on Northwest Boulevard.
• Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, which has helped fund the providers and staff.
• CenterPoint Human Services, which pays for medications.

In addition, the program works closely with the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness.

Andrea Kurtz, senior director of housing strategies with the United Way, the lead partner implementing the Ten-Year Plan, says the HOT Project was a critical piece.

“The HOT Project really does allow people outside the system to get critical services that otherwise would be difficult for them to access,” she says. “In a very low-barrier way, they can begin to make connections to the medical community and the community that serves the homeless.”

Anyone who is homeless can come to the HOT Project for mental health services. They are able to see mental health clinicians, including two part-time psychiatrists from Wake Forest Baptist, as well as social work or psychiatry residents in training at Wake Forest Baptist and other programs. Another benefit of the HOT Project is that it helps train future providers.

Setting the project’s home at Samaritan Ministries was done intentionally because many homeless people come to Samaritan’s soup kitchen for lunch—appointments are held three days a week during and around the lunch period.

Make access easy

“It’s so important that we make access to services as easy as possible for these folks,” says Kurosky, noting that 33 percent of the homeless have some form of mental illness. “A lot of the mentally ill have a set pattern in their day and part of that is coming down here for lunch.”

Mental illness is a disability that, when documented, can allow people to obtain access to supported housing (much of which has been created by the Ten-Year Plan in recent years) and other benefits. The HOT Project allows the homeless to have documentation that helps them apply for housing and benefits.

Kurtz says that since 2005, when the Ten-Year Plan was first conceived, homelessness in the county is down 67 percent. In 2005, 200 people were counted as chronically homeless in 2005; a count last July put that the number at 67.

Another benefit of the HOT Project is that staff members work with participants to identify personal goals. Some will seek disability benefits, while others want to receive vocational training or retraining and re-enter the workforce. In addition, many are able to obtain permanent housing.

To Arnold, the success of both the HOT Project and the decline in the number of chronically homeless is rewarding.

“It’s incredible to see how much of a difference you can make when people who are struggling with mental illness get help,” she says. “I don’t think everyone realizes how many wonderful people are out there who’ve fallen on hard times, are struggling, have mental illness and want help.”