Features

Patrons For Peace Project was very busy this past year. We tried very hard not to allow the COVID-19 Pandemic’s residual effects to interfere with the services that we wanted to provide on a timely basis to each client. Once again, we want to thank Bob Reilly for the incredible services which he continues to provide to each client including transportation and walking people through the maze at Social Service agencies.

2022 was a year that we were fortunate to be able to help many women. An elderly woman on the verge of being unhoused was referred to us early in the year. She was unable to fully care for herself. She reported being in special education while growing up. She fell through the cracks and the school system failed to get her DDA services. This was a tragedy since she needed so many services and no one was there to assist her. We are so proud to report that we were able to hire an expert, Dr. Ronald S. Federici, a Clinical Developmental Neuropsychologist, who is world-renowned. He assessed her and his final report helped us to convince DDA that she should be eligible for their services.

 We were able to also help stabilize and house a woman who was experiencing psychosis. She was found in a laundromat and had been floating around the country. She would sleep in bushes at night near a library. Sadly, this lady would end up in emergency rooms all over the country and then would be discharged to the street or a shelter where she would walk out. We hospitalized her and then followed her when she was put in a crisis bed.  We met with her and set up the necessary services. Then we applied for disability and eventually we were able to get her into psychiatric housing.

We were able to get SSI for a chronically unhoused middle-aged woman who had been on the streets for many years. We took her to doctor’s appointments and paid for her phone until her benefits came in.

We helped to stabilize an unhoused woman who was living in an abandoned car with her cat. She was very fearful and reluctant at first to accept help from our organization. In time she slowly started to trust us, and we were then able to get her needed medical treatment. We are happy to report she is now permanently housed.

We assisted many people who needed psychiatric, and substance use disorder stabilization. Once they were medically stabilized, we helped them to get into halfway houses and funded their program fee until they could secure a job.  

The COVID-19 Pandemic continued to interfere with the normal flow of social service agencies by slowing down and backing up services available to the unhoused population.  Bob Reilly, our assistant and driver, made it possible for us to continue to provide many valuable services under these challenging circumstances.  His primary focus was transportation, but he was also able to help clients apply to redeem stolen stimulus checks.   He also assisted some of our clients with paperwork to straighten out some tax issues.  After starting out with us as a driver, Bob has transformed into a valuable multi-faceted resource for our clients.  

Patrons For Peace Project continued to hand out masks and hand sanitizer daily. We purchased 16 phones for unhoused individuals so we could immediately begin working with people in crisis and connect eight of them with QCI Behavioral Health.

We came across an unhoused man who was almost blind.  Immediately we put him into a hotel for safety. We then were able to partner with the Wilmer Eye Clinic (for over a year) and provide transportation to Baltimore City while housing him and arranging for him to have two surgeries on each eye. His treatment was successful, and he can now see.

We were able to help nine individuals get into treatment programs.  These were individuals who were put out of local shelters for behaviors caused by substance use disorder issues.  Then they were assisted with halfway-house placement when finished treatment.

We were instrumental in pushing and helping to pass an ordinance in the City of Laurel requiring that air conditioning be provided by landlords for their tenants.  We met with the local mayor and individual council members.  We consulted with officials in other jurisdictions that had passed similar legislation.  We were successful in presenting a Petition with nearly 100 signatures to City Hall.  Now we have a law requiring landlords to provide air-conditioning to indoor living units during the hot summer months.  (A law requiring heat was already on the books.)

We were able to help four unhoused individuals by applying for Social Security disability benefits and eventually housing them.

This June we are incredibly happy to feature the exceptionally talented C. Michael Walls. Without him Patrons for Peace would not exist. A lawyer, journalist, musician, and all-around Renaissance man, he began by offering his services to incorporate PPP in 2004. That is when the organization was born.

Starting with his editing skills as a journalist he has proofread every piece of material we have ever sent out and published. He has assisted with grant writing as we apply to get funding for unhoused individuals. Michael has even helped with fundraisers playing music as he can play percussion instruments, guitar, saxophone, bass, and the harmonica.

Perhaps the most impactful assistance that has come from Michael has been his assistance with clients as a criminal defense lawyer. He has donated so much pro bono work over the years assisting our clients with a myriad of issues such as DWIs, theft, assaults and MVA troubles. Some of our client’s experience substance use disorders and are consumers of supportive mental health services that need his assistance to help get their life back on track. Michael has always been available to answer a question Patrons for Peace Project may have, reviewing a letter from the courts, advising a client what their rights are, at times representing and other times directing how to get a public defender.

Michael helped to guide us through a particularly heartbreaking case involving a mother and disabled son who were being threatened by their landlord. He advised us on how to proceed to protect this mother and son.  We had to help the mother take out a restraining order against the landlord. He walked us through the court procedure, so we were able to accompany her in the courtroom. This is one example of the behind-the-scenes legal assistance he provides 24/7 for Patrons for Peace Project. We are so very thankful for all the many unique areas of expertise that Michael brings to the table to assist our clients and our organization. His multifaceted talents truly enrich the organization!

Over the past ten years, Patrons for Peace Project and Vernessa Scurry, MA, have worked together coordinating care for consumers accessing mental health services. Ms. Scurry has been the Executive Director of Safe Journey House for the past five years and has assisted us with care we are trying to access for our clients. Prior to that, we worked with her at QCI Behavioral Health for five years.  We appreciate Ms. Scurry for all that she does to advocate for each client. As Executive Director of Safe Journey House she is responsible for the operation of four separate locations throughout the local region. Yet she has always been extremely accessible and works hard to accommodate the intake and treatment needs of each of our clients.  

Patrons for Peace Project has been extremely fortunate to be able to refer clients to Safe Journey House for psychiatric stabilization.  These short term therapeutic residential facilities in Hyattsville, Ellicott city, Gaithersburg and Waldorf have helped to prevent many of our clients from being hospitalized.  We are incredibly grateful for Ms. Scurry’s active role in this agency. She oversees the crisis counselors and mental health professionals in each house and helps to guide them as they deliver compassionate evidence-based care. She is also directly and indirectly involved in client care by managing all the many situations that arise within the organization.

We have called Ms. Scurry when we have had clients in hospitals and on park benches, and she immediately starts to work to help us find a bed. She is steadfast and calm – working to quickly find a solution to assist the client in need. She continually reaches out to our agency letting us know when beds are available. Once the client is admitted to Safe Journey House and stabilized, a safe discharge plan is developed. It is during this time that some clients will be referred to a Residential Rehabilitation Program (RRP). This lengthy detailed-oriented application process is overseen by Ms. Scurry. Patrons for Peace Project thanks her for her behind the scenes work because the RRP applications are always done correctly and in a manner that prevents any unnecessary delay for the clients.

Ms. Scurry’s passion for helping people has always been obvious to Patrons for Peace Project for the following reasons. She always goes the extra mile to do what is possible within her power and scope of practice to advocate for the client. She is extremely resourceful, possessing a wealth of knowledge of the “system,” understanding exactly where a referral source may be. Since clients can come from referring hospitals, other agencies and possibly the street, her excellent communication/interpersonal relationship skills are top-notch. She collaborates with every agency, keeping the clients’ needs first. Like a well-oiled machine, she is constantly multitasking, putting pieces of a puzzle together to ultimately benefit a client. We are incredibly grateful to Ms. Scurry.  Because of her unique skill set and zealous advocacy, many lives have been saved!