Mental Health Housing Foundation (MHHF) was founded in 1990 to support the mentally ill in their quest to live independently in the community.\u00a0 For hundreds of years Western Civilization dealt with those with severe mental disorders by placing them in special locked facilities. Hundreds of thousands of people with mental illness were kept out of sight in state mental hospitals throughout the United States.\u00a0 Most people recognized that these were not very pleasant living conditions, but they were thought to be a humane option that served to protect our communities and to take care of those who could not care for themselves. <\/p>\n
To understand MHHF it\u2019s important to understand the people we serve.\u00a0 Mental illness is a health condition that is characterized by alterations in thinking, mood or behavior that is mediated by the brain and is associated with distress and\/or impaired functioning.\u00a0 Mental disorders cause a host of problems that may include personal distress, impaired functions and disability, pain, or even death.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
About forty years ago a revolution began: the first medications that helped control the symptoms.\u00a0 With the advent of these medications, and recognition that we as a society should not be incarcerating those who have not committed a crime, the population of state hospitals plummeted.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, severe and persistent mental illness has not been cured.\u00a0 The medications themselves can have severe side effects.\u00a0 Those with severe mental disorders still need significant supportive services in order to function independently.\u00a0\u00a0 Mental illness presents a major social stigma that dissuades people from getting the help they need.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest challenges faced in getting supportive services is finding a stable home.\u00a0 Without such a home there\u2019s no safe place to cook food or sleep, no place for social workers or family to find you and little likelihood that you will get your medications. What can happen instead is that over a third of the homeless people on our streets have a serious and persistent mental illness and many mentally ill go through a revolving door of homelessness and incarceration or hospitalization. <\/p>\n
Mental Health Housing Foundation was created to provide one of the most basic of needs: appropriate, affordable housing. \u00a0\u00a0We\u2019ve approached our mission by developing a wide array of housing that meets the equally wide array of capabilities among our tenants.\u00a0 We offer apartments and condominiums for our most independent tenants.\u00a0 We offer shared housing with on site services for those who need that level of care.\u00a0 All rents are on a sliding scale, and with typical incomes under $600 a month, rents are minimal.<\/p>\n
Sound Mental Health is the largest private non-profit community mental health agency in King County and provides the supportive services our tenants need.\u00a0 They represent MHHF as our property manager.\u00a0 The role of Mental Health Housing Foundation is to develop and maintain the property.\u00a0 \u00a0We are not a service provider, but we do maintain the property.\u00a0 Our goal is to create homes that fit seamlessly into the neighborhood and that our tenants can be proud of.\u00a0 Our rents are limited and support from the broader community is very important in our success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mental Health Housing Foundation (MHHF) was founded in 1990 to support the mentally ill in their quest to live independently in the community.\u00a0 For hundreds of years Western Civilization dealt with those with severe mental disorders by placing them in special locked facilities. Hundreds of thousands of people with mental illness were kept out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mhhousing.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mhhousing.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mhhousing.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mhhousing.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mhhousing.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mhhousing.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156,"href":"https:\/\/www.mhhousing.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions\/156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mhhousing.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}