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Allocates $19,000 for the Mahoning County Re-Entry Navigator program
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County Mental Health Board has approved seeking two $500,000 state grants — one to help with capital costs for a supportive-housing project and one for an integrated health care project.
The board took the action to submit grant applications to the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services at its Thursday meeting, making the supportive housing project its first priority.
The $7.2 million, 40-unit project of affordable, permanent supportive housing for clients with behavioral- health disorders is to be built on 31 acres of land at Madison Avenue and Covinton Street, said Joseph Caruso, president and chief executive officer of Compass Family and Community Services.
The property, owned by Youngstown City Schools, is in the process of being purchased. “We are waiting for the appraisal to be finished,” Caruso said.
The project is a partnership among Help Hotline Crisis Center, Compass, Meridian Community Care and the mental-health board. The property would be owned by the mental-health board with the eventual goal of turning it over to the other three partners, officials said.
The goal is to begin construction in spring 2015 and complete the project in late 2015 or early 2016, Caruso said.
The proposed integrated health care project involves a closer working relationship between board-supported Turning Point Counseling and D&E Counseling and One Ohio Health Services.
In other action, the board allocated $19,000 to Catholic Charities to operate the Mahoning County Re-Entry Navigator program to integrate persons released from incarceration back into the community. The program is funded by a $29,000 ODMHAS’s Ex-Offender Grant. The $10,000 not given to Catholic Charities is used for mental-health services to the same persons served by the program, officials said.
The board elected officers for the 2015-2016 fiscal years: They are: Edgar Manning, chairman; Atty. Nomiki Tsarnas, first vice chairman; William Gambrel, second vice chairman; Anne Lally, treasurer; and the Rev. C.M. Jenkins, secretary.