NOVEMBER 15, 2024 PEER LEADERHSIP MARIE Groundcover contributor “Catch-it, check-it, change-it” is utilized in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services peer certification training as an approach to help navigate difficult situations. This article is a bridge to help readers understand the value of intentional peer support (defined as a supportive relationship between people who have lived experience in common, where the peer support specialist has undergone training) to the homeless, written by a chronically homeless peer. The Catch: Despite minimal published data about high quality studies specific to intentional peer support within the homeless or housing insecure populations, the effectiveness of formal peer support efforts to the homeless should be accepted (“treated”) as similar to evidence-based peer-led initiatives in mental health, substance abuse and veterans services. The Check: While the United States does not currently have established, published standards for peer support with the homeless, Canada’s Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness Society published a Peer Housing Support Program Toolkit in 2019 to help guide the development and implementation of evidenced-based peer programs specializing in housing. Change it: Efforts to implement intentional peer support related to housing issues has been underway here in Washtenaw County since 2022. Dedicated funding that allows for supervision and skill development for peer workers who are addressing poverty and institutional inequity would allow peer support programs to thrive in non-traditional sectors such as homelessness. At the end of the warming center season in 2022, two community members, Stefani Crouse and Sheri Wander, created Circling Back, a peer support group for people with lived experience with homelessness and housing insecurity. Through their participation in the support group and their personal and professional experience working in the area, a need and an opportunity arose to develop and create a trained and paid peer workforce able to reach those who fall through the gaps of services in Washtenaw County. That same year Circling Back was established; through a fiscal sponsor, they were selected to receive a $40,000 2023 grant disbursement through Washtenaw County’s New Human Services Partnership Mini-Grant, “in service of equity, and focused on addressing systemic racism, poverty and trauma.” It appears Circling Back collectively took an approach that is similar to the slogan, “nothing about us, without us,” in that they sought to create a new point of entry into the community support system based on issues related to housing stability, composed of people residing in the community they are serving. Circling Back recognized the need for people with lived experiences with homelessness to have opportunities to educate the community about homelessness, and to create new advancement opportunities for people who reflect the homeless populations' social identities and geographic locations. Ypsilanti is an area that the Office of Community and Economic Development (OCED) describes as an area with lowest access to opportunity. Ypsilanti is composed of a high number of residents who identify as Black, Indigenous or People of Color, and this is where the majority of low-income housing options are available. Efforts during 2023 focused on identifying community members residing in Ypsilanti who were interested in beginning a journey towards becoming a trained peer support specialist, as well as those invested in changing how social work is done with the homeless community. By the beginning of 2024, Circling Back’s first group of paid peer workers, all of whom have lived experience with homelessness, were formally active in the community on a daily basis. To help with the 2024 grant, Circling Back recruited me, a Certified Peer and Masters Social Worker, to act as team lead. I've been a state-certified peer for a decade, newly returned to my community of birth, yet a newcomer to the team with only a one page document to guide me. It was not immediately clear how significant training a housing specific peer force was, nor how vital my certification training, professional experience and lived experience with homelessness could be. To clarify, it appears Circling Back founders worked to create a training program to address discriminatory practices and service gaps in both the training and employment of the peer workforce. Yet they also wanted to be sensitive to the values of inclusionary practices for people at various levels of the peer workforce experience. Current ma-informed culture that values experience, training and supervision seen in the more established applications of the peer models, as they help address professional stressors. For example, current state certification requirements for peers to be eligible for a state-sponsored training require (1) a primary diagnosis of a qualifying mental health or substance abuse diagnosis, (2) have participated in services through a qualifying agency such as the Veterans Administration or Community Mental Health, (3) have at least 1-2 years of acceptable recovery, and (4) be employed by an agency that provides community based behavioral health services or by a recognized contract provider. The current state certifications requirements appear to contradict a 2021 MDHHS bulletin describing peer support specialists, which specifies a peer specialist qualifier has lived experience with substantial life disruption, and then defines a substantial life disruption as “experiencing some as or all of the following: homelessness, mental health crisis, trauma, lack of employment, criminal justice involvement, discrimination, stigma/ prejudice intensified by mental health challenges, receiving public benefits due to poverty.” Around the same time the Circling literature encourages a trauBack team was commencing its first round of paid internship positions (summer 2024), a study was published in the Community Mental Health Journal called "Certified Peer Support in the Field of Homelessness: Stories Behind the Work." This study suggests a shift from, “if peer support to the homeless works,” to “what makes peer support to the homeless effective.” As of 2023, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported that 49 of the 50 states have programs to train and certify peer workers. However, Circling Back founders recognized the need to address a gap in opportunities for Washtenaw’s most marginalized communities, as there is not a state certification for people focused on lived experience with homelessness, and current state requirements present barriers. It is important to recognize that the barriers to training or growth in projects such as Circling Back’s, with its team members who were put together to reflect the Ypsilanti homeless and housing-insecure community (who are often disabled, experience mental illness, come from traditionally marginalized identities and have other challenges) mimic barriers to fair and equitable opportunities in historically marginalized areas overall. We need to design training and workforce support programs so that they eliminate these barriers, and are guided by those closest to the problem. We don’t want people “at the top” to continue to make those decisions that the community being served has traditionally GROUNDCOVER NEWS No place like homeless: the future of peer innovation 7 Circling Back Peer Support Nework was established in 2022 to create a paid and trained peer workforce to reach those who fall through the service gap in Washtenaw County. been excluded from. A lack of understanding about the value of a homeless peer force is exemplified by Washtenaw County Community Mental Health’s local Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) lacking peer workers. The challenge at this time is less about if a housing-specific peer workforce is possible, and more about addressing the system barriers created by linking homeless services to mental health and substance abuse treatment. While Washtenaw County is fortunate to have a PATH program, as there are only 20 PATH programs in Michigan, locally, their impact is minimal, and even traumatic in some cases. For example, late last fall, as reported in Groundcover News January 26, 2024, minutes before the first snowstorm of 2024 a PATH team made initial contact with people staying in tents, with both police and city officials in tow, attempting to clear people from one area. Fortunately, housing peers in the community rallied together and are advocating for more humane alternatives to addressing local encampments. Alternatives in the local community are more in line with 2024 United States Interagency Council on Homelessness’ 19 strategies about how to address encampments. The need to continue advocating for programs like Circling Back was evident in a 2018 survey conducted by MDHHS certified peers which focused on identifying community needs and priorities. According to the state survey, no peers are formally working in a housing or homeless specific setting, yet nearly half of the certified peers reported housing was a task they addressed most days of the week, and of those peers who engage in housing see PEER page 11
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