The M Street Navigation Center has helped hundreds of people transition out of homelessness in the past several years, and getting those individuals into therapy is sometimes the key to success.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe like to say all the time that, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m not feeling well, so I\u2019m going to go to the doctor\u2019s office.\u2019 Well, the same applies with our mental health as well,\u201d said Ricky Castellano, a recovery specialist with Kern County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services.<\/p>\n
Castellano has spent nine years working to connect people living on the street with the services necessary to get them into housing. He said therapy and resolving mental health issues is foundational to the rest of a person\u2019s recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re talking about assisting individuals and improving their quality of life and reducing their symptoms, it\u2019s extremely critical that we have a therapy component attached to that,\u201d Castellano said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t come through this door because they\u2019ve had the best luck of their lives. A lot of individuals have had a lot of struggles, have experienced a lot of trauma, and are just trying to get by.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many people living on the street have mental health and substance abuse problems, criminal backgrounds and poor credit history, all of which are significant barriers to employment and housing.<\/p>\n
The staff at M Street can help with all of those things, but if someone\u2019s mental health is still unstable, resolving issues like housing and employment can be exponentially more difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes a lot of work when we\u2019re looking at years and years of trauma, years and years of abuse and just why did they end up where they\u2019re at to begin with,\u201d said Rebecca Moreno, director of housing and supportive services with the Community Action Partnership of Kern.<\/p>\n
The M Street Navigation Center is owned and funded by Kern BHRS, but CAPK is contracted to run the day-to-day operations, Moreno said, with an annual operating budget of $2.5 million.<\/p>\n
The navigation center serves as a low-barrier shelter, offering a place for homeless people to stay. Once there, Moreno said, it\u2019s much easier to connect them to services.<\/p>\n
Staff are able to help with a range of issues. The center works with the public defenders\u2019 office and the courts to try to resolve any legal issues people may have, providing transportation to court dates.<\/p>\n
The shelter works with Bakersfield College on Project HireUp, which provides education and job training. More recently, the center set up Good Neighbor Crew, which puts residents M Street residents to work on public clean-up projects and offers financial literacy classes.<\/p>\n
Therapy is a critical part of recovery, Moreno said, as many people will have trouble dealing with new responsibilities, lifestyle changes and even a fear of success.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes we have to peel back those layers and slowly get to the root cause because if we don\u2019t deal with the root causes of why a person ended up where they\u2019re at, then a lot of times they\u2019re just going to repeat those same coping mechanisms,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Evette Seargeant is getting ready to move into her own home after more than a year of living at the navigation center.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m waiting on the housing authority to contact the property management to get the PG&E turned on, and then I get my keys,\u201d Seargeant told The Californian.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a lot of problems when I came in with social anxiety, being around a lot of people. They really helped me because they helped me to learn how to deal with being in close proximity with a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the strengths of M Street\u2019s program is its ability to get services to people, wherever they are. The center facilitates transportation to medical or court appointments and even sends outreach workers into the field to connect people with services.<\/p>\n
Many people are hesitant to get into therapy, Seargeant said, but she\u2019s seen the process work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re really, really good here about trying to get focused on what we need to do and keep you, you know, on the line,\u201d she said. \u201cI know of a few people that have been here and had been here a while and they\u2019ve already been housed. So, yes, they do help.\u201d<\/p>\n
The M Street Navigation Center has been operating for six years, Moreno said, and the safe camping site for two. The center recently added a kennel to its facilities, offering a place for pets to stay and receive veterinary services.<\/p>\n
Since June 2022, the center has served 556 people, with 107 positive exits \u2014 exits to housing or family reunification \u2014 and 181 exits with income, where people were able to obtain some income before leaving.<\/p>\n
Moreno said the navigation center and safe camp site have become close-knit communities with the residents helping one another.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has formed into a community of their own, and they have governed themselves at times as well,\u201d Moreno said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey establish their own community guidelines and community leaders. They nominated and voted for their spokesperson and their safety officer, and these are held positions that they created. So it truly is a small community, and very tight-knit, and they look out for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The M Street Navigation Center has helped hundreds of people transition out of homelessness in the past several…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-427038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}