Parish Shows Way in Housing Ministry
Episcopal News Service. September 6, 1984 [84177]
TULSA, Okla. (DPS, Sept. 6) -- With the strong support of Bishop Gerald N. McAllister and the Diocese of Oklahoma, the unlikely team of a small, racially integrated mission here and a newly developing mental health center is working to provide housing to the poor, especially those who are chronically mentally ill.
This mission, St. Aidan's Episcopal Church, was formed when two parishes -- one white and one black -- merged to become one a single parish. The other partner in the million-dollar housing project, Star Community Mental Health Center, Inc., began operating in April of 1982. It was underfunded, understaffed, and served an ethnically diverse population of 85,000 people.
The story of how these two groups came together began in 1982 when the vestry of St. Aidan's started looking for ways to broaden its ministry to the community. At the same time, in the administration office of the Star Center, another kind of deliberation was taking place. Star was trying to develop a strategy for buying land and building housing for the chronically mentally ill.
The Owasso, Okla.-based center had become involved in the housing problem in response to the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health's state-wide plan for mental health services. In connection with this, the staff mental health planning group for Tulsa County, of which the Star Center was a member, set broad goals for improvement of mental health service delivery in their area. This included day hospital programs, foster care for adults, and housing to enable independent living for the chronically mentally ill. As its contribution to planning, Star volunteered to research, create and implement a strategy for the housing
The executive director of the Star Center, David N. Cramer, is an Episcopalian and a member of St. Aidan's. He is also a friend of the staff officer at the Episcopal Church Center who is responsible for housing and training, Howard Quander. The two of them discussed the nuts and bolts of the federal Housing and Urban Development's section 202 program, which the Church has been using for years to build housing for the elderly and physically handicapped. The core of the conversation centered on the fact that very few had used the program for the psychologically handicapped.
That initial conversation made the following obvious: 1) staff at the Church Center had experience and expertise in giving technical assistance for grant application and were willing to share this. 2) A partnership of the national church, the local diocese acting as sponsor, and a local church as an active member of a non-profit housing corporation would provide the track record in housing needed to satisfy HUD requirements. 3) The partnership would also need to include a social agency with expertise in mental health to satisfy the service requirement for which HUD would be looking. Star Center was a natural for that role.
The phone conversation between Cramer and Quander was followed by a meeting involving a number of parishioners, Church Center staff and others. Quander then met with the vestries of St. Aidan's, the Church of Holy Spirit, Owasso, and the diocesan council.
In December 1982, a non-profit agency was formed. A 202 proposal was initiated, with local information supplied by the Star Center, St. Aidan's and the Diocese of Oklahoma being mailed to the Church Center, where material to be incorporated into the federal application was being assembled. On Sept. 23, 1983, word was received from the local HUD office that the applications had been approved for the amount of $732,300 for the construction of 20 units of housing for the psychologically disabled.
The work is not over. After locating a site and submitting architectural drawings, there is still the problem of letting out bids and securing final commitment from HUD. If all goes well, the project may break ground in December, and look toward completion in March, 1985.
It is the belief of those involved that this sort of project can be important to the Church not only because the experience enhances the Church's history of services to the community, specifically the psychologically handicapped in need of housing, but also because this model -- where both the Church and the service agency are truly integrated -- sets an example of positive change in a multi-racial society.