Rev. Craig Rennebohm, D. Min., on the way of companionship

From the Street to Stability: A Community Mental Health Chaplaincy

Dee pushes his shopping cart long the sidewalks and alleys in an old neighborhood of warehouses, run down apartments and slowly gentrifying streets. 12 years ago profound suspicions and a haunting conspiracy began to take shape in his thoughts. He trusted no one, left his job, lost his apartment and began a hidden and frightened pilgrimage. His only sanctuaries were church porches and doorways. These “God doorways,” he said, were his only safe haven, but even then he was asked to leave when staff or parishioners found him sleeping outside or warily guarding his few belongings. Dee is one of more than 8,000 homeless souls in Seattle on any given night.

A study at the largest single adult shelter estimates that 40% of the 20,000 homeless individuals who seek help there in the course of the year have a history of mental illness. In a study at the largest day drop-in center for homeless women in Seattle, 90% of the women self reported histories of trauma and abuse. Deinstitutionalization and a lack of community mental health services leaves uncounted numbers of our sisters and brothers wandering our neighborhoods isolated, ignored, deeply vulnerable and bound by the most serious and complex of mental disorders.

Founded in 1987, the Mental Health Chaplaincy in Seattle provides four basic services: outreach on the streets with homeless individuals who struggle with symptoms of mental illness, but have no care or treatment; spiritual care on the psychiatric units and in the community mental health program of the county hospital; consultation and training in mental health ministry with local congregations; and advocacy for an effective, readily accessible community mental health system.

At the heart of the Chaplaincy’s ministry is the “way of companionship.” The chaplain, practicum students and interns, and volunteers working from their local churches, practice a patient Samaritan approach, offering hospitality, sharing the journey side by side, listening pastorally and accompanying homeless individuals on the path from the street to stability.

Learning from these basic acts of service, the Chaplaincy and companion teams in local congregations have partnered with local community mental health programs to develop innovative shelter, housing and community support programs which support recovery and integration into the community, ending the cycle of homelessness, emergency room visits, brief hospitalizations or jail and return to the street.

In addition to resources used in the companionship training, the Mental Health Chaplaincy has developed the Gentle Bible, brief daily scripture-based readings supportive of healing and recovery. Wisdom for the Journey, a discussion resource, encourages the exploration of four basic spiritual care issues: discerning what is of the spirit and what is of illness in the midst of mental illness; how both religion and brain science help us understand the illness experience; what practices of faith are supportive of healing and wholeness; and questions of purpose, meaning and vocation in the face of mental illness.

These and other resources are posted at www.mentalhealthchaplain.org.

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