Our Mission

People who suffer from serious mental illness (SMI) are among those most tragically affected by Alameda County’s seemingly intractable housing crisis.  People with SMI form large percentages of homeless and incarcerated populations and many of those who currently live with family members will become, in time, the next generation of hospitalized, incarcerated, and homeless persons with SMI when their caregivers die.  

Resources are woefully inadequate quantitatively and, in many cases, qualitatively at each level of need for treatment and housing/shelter for people with SMI. As a person with SMI attempts to progress from hospitalization, to sub-acute care, to a board and care home, and ultimately, if able, to independent permanent supportive housing, he or she will face tremendous odds. Many current efforts to provide stability for persons with SMI, however well intended, become revolving doors for costly crisis management because resources are unavailable, inadequate, temporary, and/or not tied realistically to the level of care needed at the next stage of recovery.

The initial EBSHC goal was to create housing at the post-crisis level that provides permanent stability through client/resident wellness, recovery to the extent possible, and a sense of community. Our ideal model initially provided two levels of care, guided by concerns for the quality of life. However, over time, we have expanded our advocacy efforts to include the need for SMI housing and services along the entire continuum of care. This includes advocating for expanded acute and sub-acute care facilities.

There is significant interconnectedness among many of our society’s most difficult and seemingly intractable problems— homelessness, over-incarceration, and, sometimes, violence—with the failure of our mental health care delivery system. There is simply no excuse for jails or living on the streets to have become our default mental hospitals. Appropriate housing and services for persons living with mental illness is the long-term solution, the most humane and, indeed, the least costly solution, to these problems.