Homelessness is on the rise in New Jersey.

The last point in time count, which attempts to count all individuals without housing on a single day, found a 24% increase in the last year of those with no place to call home.

But another alarming statistic is rising, and that's the mental and emotional health needs of those struggling with housing challenges.

Mental health writer Bobby Brier recently attended a hearing in Princeton, where housing advocates called on the state to increase the mental health services available for the homeless population.

Especially kids who can experience trauma and long lasting impacts from homelessness.

Bob is here now to talk more about it.

Bobby, so great to have you in studio here.

Good to see.

You.

We know that the point in time counts around 12,600 people who are homeless on one day.

We know that's not the full picture, but it's an alarming increase.

What are advocates calling for to help serve the mental health needs of this group?

Yeah.

With that in mind, they really pointed to two different reports that they had conducted, one in which looked at the children's mental health services in shelters, the other one looking at adult mental health services in shelters.

And both found that there needs to be more efficient and more effective mental health services provided to both of those populations, really in a more immediate and more timely fashion so that people who are entering the shelters either on the night of or the next day get those services that they need immediately rather than waiting.

Advocates have said that services delayed are services denied.

Essentially what they mean by that is if you don't reach somebody when they immediately need those mental health services, having gone through the trauma of homelessness, they may just get worse in their situation.

Did they talk about what that should actually look like?

We know that if you're struggling with homelessness, you're probably also struggling with transportation issues.

Is that someone coming to a shelter, for instance, a provider coming to a shelter?

It is.

That's really one of the main points that advocates have stressed through these reports.

They've said that there needs to be more onsite, in-person behavioral health clinicians around the clock at a lot of shelters throughout the state to address both the mental health needs of both adults and children.

The state had said that while they did acknowledge the report and they can't comment on specific policy from the Coalition, they have said they support the Coalition's effort to grow this statewide system and they're happy to collaborate and work with them alongside this.

So I think folks don't always understand what homelessness looks like.

We think of someone on the street, but it can be families who go to work.

It can be kids who go to school.

When we think about people trying to carry on a normal day to day life, but having no home to go home to.

What impact can that have on a person?

It has a lot of impacts that ripple throughout a person's life.

Really, what we know for children that a lot of advocates have pointed to was what they call aces or adverse childhood experiences.

A lot of this is trauma that occurs in childhood before the age of 18.

That can look like the trauma from experiencing homelessness, the lack of housing instability, the lack of food security, as well as a number of other factors.

And if that happens, a child is adversely affected through the rest of their life unless they get some real mental health support before they turn 18.

Those are just some of the issues that are looked at for children.

Adults are also in a similar position, but the second report highlighted by the advocates, have talked about the need for in-person onsite behavioral conditions for adults as well.

And that's something that we don't see as much highlighted throughout the state.

Yeah, you can imagine what it must feel like as a parent trying to hold a family together and not having a home, not having a place where your kids can go and feel safe.

The state did create the Office of Resilience.

It was really kind of in this vein looking at ACES.

Can you talk just a little bit about that?

Yeah, you know, they created this program to look at those adverse childhood experiences, to really study the trauma and address the trauma that a lot of children have gone through.

And to their credit and to the advocates of this report's credit, they have really addressed that head on.

I think what the both the advocates in the state have said is that there's always more work that can be done, one of which is the more immediate access to these mental health services.

Do they get into what they want that to look like?

What are the next steps?

How do you coordinate this care?

Yeah, you know, what they have said is they want more collaborate.

And even though it has happened in the past, according to the state, more collaboration between the state and some of these shelters staffed in order to provide more immediate onsite mental health services.

They've also one of the state mental health providers to be able to accept Medicaid patients were more Medicaid patients and to specifically treat children under the age of five.

They've also recommended looking at other states.

New York, California, Florida, Massachusetts, that have some of these collaborations already in place as a model for New Jersey.

Terrific reporting, Bobby.

Thank you so much for bringing this issue to light, which probably so many of us don't fully understand.

You can catch more of Bobby's reporting on this issue on our website, NJSpotlightNews.org Bobby, great to see you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Joanna.