"Leonard" was recently denied General Assistance again, this time because he has yet to turn in his birth certificate or a copy of his ID card to DES.  That makes eight months now since he first applied for General Assistance.  The good news is, that he is allowed to appeal this decision and still turn in the required proof of identification by the time of his appeal. I will do what I can, working with his mental health service provider, to get him this identification so he can start receiving an income.

In the last few weeks I have accepted three new people onto my caseload.  All three of the people suffer from a severe mental illness and have been identified as being chronically homeless.
One of these people is a 20 year old man who has been homeless off and on for the last few years.  I'll call him "John".  When he first arrived at CASS he worked with a different case manager and did not present any mental health problems.  After a couple of months unsuccessfully searching for a job, the client revealed to his case manager that he was having problems because of visual and auditory hallucinations he was experiencing.  He immediately agreed to a psychological evaluation and it was determine after his participation in this process that he was indeed suffering from a severe mental illness.  He then started receiving services from the local mental health provider while still job searching.  In the meantime, "John" applied for Social Security Income, General Assistance and Food Stamps.  After a few attempts of navigating the bureaucracy that is the General Assistance, AHCCCS and Food Stamp application process, the client gave up and decided to start looking for a job again.  This time he was successful and found a full time job working in the produce section of a grocery market in Mesa.  After a week of work "John" told me he was laid off.  According to him the store received a bad shipment of fruit and could not afford to retain his services.  Whether or not this is true, the bottom line is he lost the job.  Now he is interested in working with Vocational Rehabilitation (VR).  VR is a wonderful state run agency that helps people with a disability find careers.  VR will help the person find what interests them and provide them with resources to complete any necessary education to become employed in the field of their choice.  My hope is that "John" will start receiving services from VR in the very near future.

I will tell you about the other two clients in a few days.