Grandview Foundation provides shelter, addiction treatment, and support to individuals struggling with alcohol and drug addiction. Their clients are marginalized and underserved, with 100% of them having experienced homelessness and 75% formerly incarcerated. Each year, Grandview’s 33-bed residential treatment facility in Pasadena serves as many as 200 homeless men, providing shelter and rehabilitation, while an additional 100 men access outpatient rehabilitation programs.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Grandview faced a complex web of challenges to its normal operations, ranging from how to quarantine patients showing symptoms of COVID-19 to keeping up to 30 men in early sobriety busy for seven weeks (and counting) of complete isolation.
A COVID-19 emergency response grant from Pasadena Community Foundation allowed Grandview to tackle one of their biggest challenges – housing the men who complete treatment during the quarantine period.
Grandview continues to provide rehabilitation services and support for basic needs, including housing placement, for clients who complete residential treatment. However, with the number of available beds reduced due to quarantine protocols, and housing nearly impossible to secure under Pasadena’s “Safer at Home” orders, Grandview feared for its departing patients, who are at great risk for relapse, homelessness, and COVID-19 infection.
“Our staff has no doubt that a return to the streets during the ongoing pandemic is a death sentence for our vulnerable clients who have worked so hard to become sober,” said Shelly Wood, Grandview Foundation’s executive director. “The grant from PCF has allowed us to provide four months of sober living housing for these men, meeting their basic needs and continuing therapies, job placement, and recovery support.”
PCF’s COVID-19 response grant will also help Grandview sustain the care and community within its residential treatment program, supporting meals for staff working long, hard hours during the pandemic. Grandview continues to offer all outpatient services while practicing social distancing protocols. Group meetings, mental health services, and educational programs are offered online and over the phone, allowing for virtual support from professionals and peers.
As for how Grandview’s clients are handling the quarantine period? Shelly reports that they have been absolute superstars, and none have left treatment due to the COVID-19 restrictions. Without group meetings there has been a lot of time to fill, so the residents formed a committee to come up with activities, including building model cars, exercise, yoga, cooking classes, poker tournaments, and their first book club.
“The activities don’t replace treatment, but they remind our patients that they are part of a community that cares about them,” said Wood. “At the same time, our staff has organized activities that allow the patients to give back to their own communities and experience the pride of helping out during this difficult time.” Patients have built and painted Little Free Libraries, driven up to Oxnard with signs of support and gifts for farmworkers still on the job, and created and sent Easter baskets to their children, or their friends’ children.
PCF’s COVID-19 Response grant will impact the clients expected to transition out of residential treatment and sustain the hard work of Grandview’s 40 staff members and their families. The Foundation’s support will also be felt by the more than 300 individuals who rely on Grandview each year, who will benefit from knowing that Grandview takes care of their clients at every stage of their recovery, and that services and support will not stop during this pandemic, or other difficult times.