By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO–Chesed Home, a group home for mentally ill Jewish adults, has been leased in Escondido, and fundraising is now underway to equip, staff and purchase what will become a licensed facility, according to Fern Siegel, president of Hope Village San Diego.
Siegel, a former president of Jewish Family Service and of Temple Emanu-El, has long been active on the JFS Mental Health Committee, where the idea was born. At one time, she said during a recent interview, it was thought JFS itself might run the facility, but it was decided that operating a home goes beyond the JFS mission, which is to provide a variety of social services to families.
Siegel drew an analogy to the Seacrest Village Retirement Communities organization which provides care and housing for the Jewish elderly. That organization is a separate non-profit agency, which works closely with JFS and the Jewish Federation of San Diego County.
The leased property at 402 West Lincoln is well configured for three structures, Siegel said. There will be a six-bedroom facility, able to house six residents and a live-in couple to manage the home. In the back of the property are two duplexes for independent living, which she predicted eventually will be filled with eight graduates of the group home. In the meantime, Hope Village San Diego plans to collect monthly rent from unaffiliated tenants already living in the duplexes.
A $3 million campaign is expected to cover both capital and operating costs for the facility, at which programming will be modeled after that offered at the non-sectarian group home for the mentally ill in Ramona called ” Changing Options.” The retired longtime director of that organization, Michael Hellman, serves on the advisory board of Chesed Home.
Siegel has an adult daughter who after graduating college exhibited signs of paranoid schizophrenia. With treatment, counseling and medication, she was able to again live independently, eventually marrying a man who also has a mental illness. Siegel said the couple is living quite well on their own, and neither is expected to ever need to live in the Jewish group home.
However, Siegel said, in San Diego, there are at least several dozen Jewish families whose adult children have mental illness. In their 20’s and 30’s, and sometimes early 40’s, these children are a source of worry to their aging parents, who torment themselves with such questions as “What will happen to them?” “Who will look after them?” when the parents die or become too infirm to be caregivers.
While Jewish Family Service provides caseworkers to provide intensive counseling for the mentally ill, and will continue to do so for Chesed Home residents, Siegel says the Jewish community has lagged behind other religious communities and secular organizations in providing living accommodations for the mentally ill. Chesed Home will be the very first Jewish facility in San Diego County.
Although some Jewish families have arranged for their adult children to stay at Changing Options, as good as it is, it is not an ideal solution, Siegel said. As a non-sectarian institution, it offers no Jewish content– no way for the residents to feel connected to the community. It is also a far distance from Jewish population centers in San Diego County, meaning visits between residents and their parents have to be planned, while impromptu visits are rarer.
A typical day at Changing Options is a model for what is likely to occur at Chesed Home, said Siegel. There will be three nutritious meals served to the residents each day. Residents will be taught daily living skills. There will be activities and workshops. All this stands in contrast to some other group homes, where the residents are “ware-housed, simply watching television all day and having few activities to keep their minds occupied, Siegel said.
While the need for the Jewish community to reach out to its more vulnerable members may seem obvious on its face, Siegel said some Jewish families — raised on the idea that everyone must be achievers — are embarrassed, even ashamed, by children who have difficulty keeping up with daily life. There is a lot of denial in the Jewish community, she said. The subject of mental illness in the Jewish community is often avoided, or simply not talked about.
Because of these factors, instead of receiving high-quality help, Jews with mental illness may be neglected, especially those whose families don’t have the means to afford high-quality care.
While residents will contribute their SSI payments from the State of California for their upkeep, additional costs will be borne by their families or by scholarships that will be provided by Chesed Home, a name that translates from Hebrew as “Loving Kindness Home.”
“The mission of Chesed Home is to provide a safe and nurturing residence for adults with serious mental illness, based on Jewish values and compassionately delivered individualized services,” says the group’s official mission statement. “Chesed Home will provide an environment where individuals with mental illness can achieve the highest level of personal dignity, self worth and independence.”
An information sheet adds that the Escondido neighborhood in which Chesed Home is located is “within walking distance of public transportation, shopping, restaurants, police headquarters, Palomar Hospital and Escondido Performing Arts Center.”
In addition to Siegel, Chesed Home’s board of directors includes:
— Hannah Moss, a California Licensed Fiduciary who serves as a board member of the Special NeedsTrust Foundation;
–Dana Glasser, a master’s of social work who worked at UCSD’s outpatient psychiatric facility and also developed training manuals for help/ crisis line volunteers dealing with patients with post-partum depression.
–Cecile Jordan, a doctor of education who previously served as executive director of the Agency for Jewish Education.
— Suzanne Marcus, a licensed psychologist who currently serves as president of the San Diego Society for Clinical Hypnosis and an adjunct professor at UCSD.
–Steven B. Weitzen, an attorney, who has served as president of the Agency for Jewish Education, Congregation Beth El, and Congregation Adat Yeshurun.
— Karen S. Yasgoor, an organizational psychologist who has served on the boards of the Children’s School of La Jolla, California and Tap Fever Dance Studios.
More information about Hope Village’s Chesed Home may be obtained by calling (619) 998-4873, or writing hopevillagesandiego@gmail.com
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com