‘Can’t believe this is mine’: People with mental health challenges get new home in Broward

R&B music drifted from Marie Honoré-Rigaud’s radio as she sifted through her belongings in her new Pembroke Pines apartment earlier this month. She had just moved in, but her home was already decked out with Alpha Kappa Alpha paraphernalia, a reminder of her younger days and the support system she still has.

This moment — having a place to call her own — was decades in the making for the 59-year-old, whose mental health diagnoses left her without consistent work or housing for most of her life. Although Honoré-Rigaud had her first mental health episode at 24, she wasn’t formally diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety and PTSD until the age of 40, which helped her make sense of the difficulty she had holding down jobs throughout her career.

Now, for the first time in her life, she will have a place of her own with the help of the Foot Print to Success Clubhouse, a Broward County nonprofit that assists adults with serious and persistent mental illnesses in developing life skills. Founded in 2010, the organization is in the middle of laying its footprint in Pembroke Pines with a location that has housing for its members and will soon have a teaching kitchen to provide skills for those who wish to work in the food service industry.

Honoré-Rigaud is one of about 20 members to move into the new building so far. But the New York native’s journey to her own place was long: Since moving to South Florida nearly 30 years ago, she has lived with various family members and worked a variety of jobs she was never able to hold down for the long haul. This will be the first time she’s been able to live independently.

The new Pembroke Pines development, called Southwest Hammocks, has been seven years in the works and was opened in partnership with Carrfour, a Miami-based nonprofit that develops and manages affordable and supportive housing communities for low-income individuals and families. The development has 100 housing units, half of which are designated as supportive housing — affordable housing that offers support services for people to live stably, Carrfour CEO Stephanie Berman said. The units are offered at a range of between 25% to 60% of the area median income, with studios, one bedrooms and two bedrooms priced somewhere between $416 and $1,300 a month.

Carrfour has a similar development in Miami called Northside Commons that services the same population, with supportive housing units built atop a downstairs “clubhouse” where members can access services and participate in social events. Some members also find employment at the clubhouse.

“The idea of folks that have severe persistent mental illness being able to come down to the clubhouse for the day and work in the clubhouse and then go upstairs to live was so successful that we really wanted to replicate that model,” Berman said. “And there was a need for that type of housing community for that same population in Broward, and we thought that would be a great place to replicate the success that we saw in Miami.”

Berman said that, often times, people with mental illness are couch-surfing or cycling through expensive systems of care, such as emergency rooms or treatment facilities. “So they’re not necessarily on-the-street homeless, but they’re not permanently housed,” she said.

Foot Print to Success Clubhouse member Ashlay Mortimer has a similar story. The 32-year-old was living with her sister in Philadelphia at 18 when she had a mental health episode and was subsequently diagnosed with depression, anxiety, PTSD and schizoaffective disorder. After moving in and out of her mom’s home, Mortimer bounced around rooming houses across South Florida, where she shared bathrooms and kitchens with a rotating cast of strangers dealing with their own lives of instability. With Mortimer’s diagnosis, it was difficult for her to keep jobs.

“I couldn’t work. I was traumatized greatly. It was hard for me to function,” she said.

Before gaining permanent housing, she was living in a rooming house in Fort Lauderdale. Brandon Boyd, a friend of Mortimer’s, described her living situation as unstable.

“Knowing her as a friend and the sweet, kind person that she is, she didn’t deserve to be in that kind of environment,” he said.

Now, Mortimer has her own apartment. While she’s still unpacking and settling in, she is relieved to have a place of her own.

“I can take a shower when I want. I don’t have to wait for somebody to get out of the restroom,” Mortimer said. “ ... It’s amazing. It feels great.”

Life for Mortimer and Honoré-Rigaud is already becoming more stable; in addition to her new apartment, Honoré-Rigaud also works for Foot Print.

Foot Print to Success Clubhouse CEO Barbara Harmon said that having housing for the organization’s members was always part of her vision.

“Having permanent housing like Carrfour is, I think, is one of the best things that can happen to them,” Harmon said. “ ... It provides stability to them, and they’re in a safe environment, where they didn’t have that before.”

Honoré-Rigaud credits her ability to live on her own to her support system, which includes her sorority sisters and her two children, Yazmeen, 30, and Israel, 31. Israel Rigaud was initially worried about his mother being on her own but said his wife was able to help assuage those concerns.

“I grew up with my mom, so I have certain limitations that I created for her out of protective measures, but … having my wife be like, ‘Hey, you’re doing all this stuff for your mom, you’re actually enabling her’” changed things, he said. “Sometimes you need to hear it from somebody else.”

Honoré-Rigaud is now just a short trip away from her son, who lives in nearby Miramar, and is settling into her new digs. Last week, she unpacked seven bags, met a few neighbors and was even invited into one of their homes.

“I’m adjusting. I’m learning,” she said. “I still can’t believe this is mine.”