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Ron and Lin Wilensky with Dave,(right)

Mental illness. The term conjures up images of padded rooms, straightjackets, and horrifying asylums and despite decades of groundbreaking research and the fact that mental disorders are real diseases caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, the stigmas still linger. Individuals who suffer from mental illness struggle not only with themselves, but with a society that wants to avoid them.

Donating For more information on donating to the Brain Foundation of Florida, which benefits Dave’s House, please email Ron Wilensky at ronwilensky@msn.com. To donate directly to Dave’s House, visit www.lakesidecares.org. Lakeside also hosts a luncheon to benefit Dave’s House each October during Mental Illness Awareness Week. Visit the website for information.

In the United States alone, one in four adults suffer from a mental disorder, or about 57 million people in a given year. These diseases affect one in four families, and the cost of untreated mental illness to society is close to $100 billion. So it may come as a surprise to some that many people are able to live productive and even outstanding lives despite their mental illness.
Dave Jeffreys was one such individual. A smart young man who “should have had the world on a string,” according to sister Lin Wilensky of Dr. Phillips, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his junior year at college.

“I followed my older brother to college and one day when we were in the lunchroom, Dave wanted to know why everything was laughing and staring at him,” she recalled. “No one was looking our way.” Jeffrey’s hallucination that night was the beginning of a severe disability he battled for the next 40 years, robbing him of a promising life and changing his family’s life forever.


Struggling with illness

For the first 25 years of his illness, Jeffreys would find a bit of normalcy in his life, then start falling in a downward spiral that would end in hospitalization. “This happened like clockwork every three to four years,” said Wilensky. After one such occurrence, when Jeffreys was arrested and later feared dead, he finally found respite in a small home with two roommates and regular supervision by a mental health specialist. He spent the last 15 years of his life there, in a home operated by Pathway Homes, Inc. in Fairfax, Virginia, until his death in 2007 at age 61.

“When Dave died, my husband Ron and I knew we had to do something in his honor to help those like him,” said Wilensky. “We had moved to the Orlando area and there were no supportive living programs like the one at Pathways, so we decided to start a program.”


Dave’s House

The couple, both retired human resources professionals, had long been involved with advocacy organizations for the mentally ill. Ron Wilensky serves on the board of Pathways, and Lin has been a board member of Lakeside Behavioral Healthcare in Orlando since 1998. They are also involved with the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) of Greater Orlando.
“Lakeside has a 25-year track record of caring for the mentally ill in Orlando, and because I’m a board member, I knew they had the clinical and housing experience needed to run the program we wanted,” said Lin Wilensky.

Teaming up with Lakeside and using the Pathways home as their model, the Wilenskys provided seed money to provide group homes for adults with mental disorders and purchased a small house in a West Orange County neighborhood. They donated the house to Lakeside and the first “Dave’s House” opened in the summer of 2006.

Lakeside mental-health workers visit Dave’s House six residents regularly to ensure they are taking their medications, are getting along, are maintaining the house, and are going to their jobs or attending the various programs available to them. Rent is on a sliding scale according to ability to pay, because most people with mental illness are considered disabled and are supported by Social Security.


Leading a normal life

“Living in a house like this is a vital part of the treatment and recovery for these individuals,” said Jerry Kassab, CEO of Lakeside. “Dave’s House allows them to lead more normal lives because they have to make decisions, they have responsibilities, and they are no longer passive recipients of care.”

Most residents of Dave’s House have previously lived in Lakeside-supported housing, where they have learned life skills required to live independently. “Dave’s House provides a vital continuum of care that is complete and integrated for residents who are able to ‘graduate’ to more independent living,” Kassab pointed out.

Ron Wilensky, who loved Dave like a brother, has formed The Brain Foundation of Florida, Inc. to raise funds for housing and mental health support services. The Foundation donated a third home to Lakeside in 2010, serving 7 more residents.


Vision for the future

“Our goal is to open 17 more homes by 2020, providing housing for 100 people,” said Lin Wilensky. “I’ve seen first-hand how this kind of housing can change the life of someone who has to live with a mental illness, and I hope this is just the beginning of more programs like Dave’s House across the country.”

Tags:

Dave’s House, Inc., Lakeside Behavioral Healthcare, mental illness, Mental Illness Awareness Week, NAMI, Pathway Homes, schizophrenia

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