2022-100-Faces-Book - Flipbook - Page 34
Ash
Peer. Survivor. Navigator.
Ash is a certified peer recovery specialist at Park
Center, a United Way partner agency that empowers
people who have mental illness and substance use
disorders to live and work in their communities.
“I myself am in recovery and have been trained to use
the experiences that I had in the mental health system
to help folks navigate that system as they move
through their recovery,” he says.
Park Center is comprised of many different
departments: homeless outreach, substance
abuse, psychiatric rehabilitation and residential
services—where Ash works. He works with people
to get into affordable housing and then maintain
it through two avenues at Park Center: Permanent
Supportive Housing and Supported Housing. The
Permanent Supportive Housing program offers one-,
two- and three-bedroom units for people living with
a serious mental illness and co-occurring disorders.
In Supported Housing, residents receive psychiatric
rehabilitation services to transition to independent
living while sharing a bedroom with one other person.
“Some individuals experiencing homelessness
haven’t had a home for 10 or 15 years, and it’s a big
adjustment,” Ash says. “Living with roommates is very
different than living on the street where you can just
leave if you have a dispute.”
One resident that comes to mind for Ash is someone
who had been living under a bridge for many years.
“We got him into housing, and he had a really hard
time … feeling claustrophobic, just not used to living in
a home. We were able to set him up with a tent in the
backyard that he was able to sleep in until he got more
comfortable being inside. And then he was eventually
able to transition to sleeping in his bed in his home,”
Ash says. “That was a really kind way for us to meet
him where he was—listening to what he needed and
being creative with the way that we were serving him.
Because it would have been very sad for him to just be
overwhelmed with the transition and then fall out of
housing and back into homelessness again.”
This work hits close to home for Ash. He was working
in a different field before Park Center.
“And then I got diagnosed with a mental illness myself
and ended up in an inpatient program and just had
my life turned around—literally. I was struck by how
little people know about the mental health field and
how difficult it can be to navigate. I mean, I am a white
person who has some money, and it was difficult for
me. And it’s so much more difficult when you bring
race, gender, affluence—all those other things. And I
just continued to learn all the inequities and I just … I
never stopped.”
He says accessing affordable and affirming mental
health services is hard for anybody, but especially for
folks who have a low income or no income and are in
the middle of a mental health crisis. He says this work
still feels so important because there is so much more
to be done.
“Nashville winters are not habitable. Folks are living
outside and dying. During the winter months, people
die from being on the streets and people are on the
streets because the programs that we have in place
are not serving them. So, it feels like work that I
can’t not do or can’t forget about. Members of our
community are not getting their needs met. And how
can we look away from that?”
Park Center
