This year’s luncheon was another great success, raising more than $575,000 and highlighting Plymouth’s critical role in today’s mental health system.

 

The luncheon was held on Tuesday, Sept. 16th at the Westin Hotel in downtown Seattle. This year’s theme was the connection between mental illness and homelessness and the life-changing, cost-saving outcomes of Plymouth’s permanent supportive housing.

Over 900 luncheon guests were engrossed by startling local and national mental health system data, gripping personal stories from Plymouth residents, and insights from experts like Rev. Dr. Craig Rennebohm (founder of the Mental Health Chaplaincy), keynote speaker Charlie Gibson of ABC’s World News and Good Morning America, and Plymouth executive director Paul Lambros.

 

 

John McHale, vice president of Plymouth’s board of trustees, delivered a heartfelt message that drew on his strong personal connections to the men and women Plymouth serves, including the late Bob Hodson, who served with John as a tenant representative on the Plymouth board.

Rev. Dr. Rennebohm and several Plymouth residents were featured in Plymouth’s 2014 luncheon video. The video highlights the critical role Plymouth’s permanent supportive housing plays in today’s mental health system. Plymouth’s sustained and cost-effective outcomes are contrasted with other alternatives (such as streets, shelters, emergency rooms and jails), where many people living with mental illness end up because, according to Paul Lambros, “there’s just no place else for them to go.”

 

POP QUIZ!

 

Q:  Which costs the most?

a)    Six days at Harborview.

b)    80 days in a King County jail.

c)    One year of permanent housing with 24/7 support at Plymouth.

 

A:  They all cost the same (about $14,000). *

But choice C—a year at Plymouth—offers a lasting,  life-changing solution.

 

 

“The luncheon offered a really great distillation of what Plymouth Housing Group can do with $14k in providing services for a year, compared with the alternatives.

The remarks throughout the luncheon and the video reminded me a whole lot of ‘solution leverage’– a term that refers to the fact that we have to solve for the problem that’s likely to have the greatest ripple effect, or try to topple the domino that’s furthest up the chain. I think about it often in public policy.

As far as the experience and evidence go with housing, particularly for people experiencing chronic homelessness, there seems to be just an extraordinary amount of solution leverage in putting housing first, especially faced with the alternative ways we’re providing services.”

–Washington State Representative Brady Walkinshaw

 

L-R: Washington State Rep. Brady Walkinshaw, Charlie Gibson, and Plymouth Board President Stewart Landefeld.

To learn more about the impact of your luncheon gift, read Plymouth’s 2013 Annual Report.

 

 

Thank you to everyone who attended, and to all whose generous support

makes the dramatic outcomes of Plymouth possible all year long. 

 

*Sources:

Catherine Cornwall, City of Seattle

Washington State Dept. of Social and Health Services. www.dshs.wa.gov

Washington State Hospital Association. www.wahospitalpricing.org