Community Hope is dedicated to ensuring quality services. Our acceptable standards of quality care are monitored through client and stakeholder satisfaction surveys; client chart reviews; site visits of our residential facilities; bi-monthly question-and-answer forums with residents of our programs and other opportunities to gauge how well we are providing services.
These monitoring processes and the measurement of specific outcomes ensures that we are meeting our acceptable standards. It further allows us to identify methods for improving services based on our clients’ needs.
A key measure of our residents’ success is the ability to avert long-term psychiatric hospitalization or a return to homelessness through support services, stable housing, daily structure, and crisis intervention.
In FY06, 204 of 210 individuals we served continued to progress in their recovery and achieved a normalized life in the community while residing in our programs.
These success rates account for the following percentage of residents within our programs:
- 100% of our Transitional Housing residents, in spite of many having previously experienced lengthy hospitalizations.
- 96% of CHOICE Independent-Living residents were able to successfully transition to greater self-sufficiency. In addition, 28% of CHOICE residents were competitively employed in December 2006 as compared to estimates that only 10% to 15% of individuals with a persistent mental illness are employed nationally.
- 96% of the veterans residing in our Hope for Veterans® Program. In addition, 100% of these formerly homeless veterans able to work attained employment last year and 97% established a personal savings account. These are key indicators for veterans who have experienced years of poverty and homelessness.
Outcomes also indicate how vulnerable the individuals we serve are to such external factors as the cost of living and the lack of affordable rental housing. For example:
- The rate of homelessness of those entering our CHOICE Independent Living Program rose from 30% to 50% in 2005. Additional CHOICE residences are being planned for development.
- Despite opening the largest facility for homeless veterans in New Jersey, the 75-bed Hope for Veterans® facility has consistently experienced a waiting list. A new wing is currently under construction.
