The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Effort to keep troubled families together
DCF program lends support as parents get clean
Drug use had already resulted in her mother caring for her older children and now she was trying to raise her 2yearold daughter while addicted to crack cocaine.
“When you do crack, you’re not in the right state of mind,” the woman admitted. “You can’t work, you can’t function, you don’t need to go away for 30 days to deal with it, you need to go away for a long time.”
Jennifer, who asked to
“All the evidence is clear that it’s better for children to live with their families when it is safe to do so.” Gary Kleeblatt, DCF spokesman
have her last name and city of residence withheld, faced with the reality that her third child would be placed in foster care unless she immediately sought help.
Two years later, she is now among more than 500 families helped annually by the state Department of Children and Families’ Supportive Housing for Families program.
“I got my family back,” she said. “I didn’t hear my son’s voice for four years, that broke my heart, now we talk every night.”
The supportive housing program is for families who have DCF involvement and who face having children placed in foster care because they are unstably housed or homeless, said Kim Somaroo-Rodriguez, a program supervisor for housing and homeless services within DCF.
“There are families who need treatment but aren’t going because they are going place to place with nowhere to live,” Somaroo-Rodriguez said. “Once they receive housing, they can start to address those issues.”
People tend to stay stuck in addiction if there is no hope of finding stable housing or reunifying the family, she said. There are 600 families on the waiting list to get into the program. Most families in the program are single mothers with children. For many, the cost of a twobedroom apartment is prohibitive while they are trying to sort through issues that have led to DCF involvement.
The program started two decades ago with 50 families in the first year. Now with a $13 million budget, the program capacity is 500 families annually. Some leave to their own housing or obtain a housing voucher, which opens up spots for others who are “doubled up,” sleeping on relative’s couches or in shelters, bringing the total number served each year to about 700 families, SomarooRodriguez said.
In addition to housing, families in the program also receive case management, access to traumainformed services, job coaching, help paying utilities and other supports that in many cases eventually leads to independent living. The average stay in the program is 18 months, with some families staying as long as 24 months.
The goal is to keep families together while they seek treatment, agency spokesman Gary Kleeblatt said.
The housing is provided at various apartments throughout the state, giving people the opportunity to be near support systems and resources such as family, who can provide babysitting or transportation.
“Foster care is necessary, but we want to use it as little as possible,” Kleeblatt said. “All the evidence is clear that it’s better for children to live with their families when it is safe to do so.”
‘The reality hit me’
In March 2017, Jennifer was considered too high of a risk to raise a child. An anonymous phone call tipped DCF off that she was using drugs. She tested positive for crack cocaine when she met with DCF officials.
They told her she had two options: See her daughter go into foster care or get into treatment immediately.
She began calling programs, but she initially couldn’t find one that would take her and her daughter that day.
“I started crying, the reality hit me,” Jennifer said.
But she kept trying. She finally convinced an employee of The Connection in Bridgeport, an onsite substance abuse treatment program that allowed women to remain with their children, that she needed to enter that day.
“I told them, ‘I can’t go tomorrow, I have to go now,’” she said. “DCF told me, ‘you have to make this work, Jennifer.’”
She went home, grabbed clothing for herself and her daughter and showed up at The Connection’s New Haven office within hours.
“They admitted me that night,” she said. “I felt such relief.”
She spent the next 60 days clearing her head and getting to know her child while sober.
“I needed to get to know her and I needed to get to know myself,” she said.
Jennifer had an associate’s degree in Business Management, but she was abusing crack to deal with trauma in her life, including the deaths of her older children’s fathers, she said.
“I learned there are daily stressors in your life, but you can’t use drugs as a coping skill,” she said.
She was ready to be released after 10 months and started applying for jobs. But at that point, she had no place to go.
“I didn’t want to go to a shelter,” Jennifer said. “I had come too far and my child had come too far.”
That’s when she was offered a spot in DCF’s supportive housing program. She received her apartment on Jan. 1, 2018 and is now working in the business field and steadily improving her credit score so she can buy a reliable car.
“DCF has been nothing but a blessing since they came into my life,” she said. “I give them a lot of gratitude. When that person made the anonymous call, at the time I was scared, but now I’m grateful.”