Jeff Horrocks had been to the hospital 34 times since he was 18.
Horrocks, who is now 40, is bipolar with schizoaffective disorder and would often go off his medications, landing him in the hospital. Some of those were the results of failed suicide attempts. To compound it, he was addicted to alcohol and illicit drugs.
Five years ago, he was sick and tired of being sick and tired and got sober. The next year he moved into a property owned by Community Housing Development Association, which provides low-income housing to people with disabilities and those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford an apartment, including retired seniors.
“The biggest thing besides getting off drugs and alcohol was responsibility, not having people over and being quiet,” Horrocks said.
But he said that sense of responsibility with independent living bolstered his recovery, on top of meeting his fiancée and roommate Tracey Collier, who also struggles with mental illness and is four years clean and sober.
Beyond the housing, it was his relationship with community manager Scott Maline, who is essentially a leasing agent, but also a resource and someone who knows the stories of the tenants. Now Horrocks lives in Englewood at the Canterbury Apartments, which CHDA spent $6.87 million to renovate and remodel the 43 units that were completed a few months ago.
“When we have the funding partners to do it, it’s incredibly special for us and the residents,” Maline said.
The project was a partnership between the CHDA, Arapahoe/Douglas Mental Health Network, Developmental Pathways and Arapahoe House, who all refer clients to the apartment complex.
“In the case of the folks that have developmental disabilities and folks dealing with mental illness, the alternate housing choice has been institutionalized housing,” said Jo Ellen Davidson, executive director of the CHDA. “These three organizations recognized that living in an safe, clean housing is complimentary to the health and well-being of the individuals.”
The CHDA owns five other properties in the South Metro region for low-income individuals. The CHDA acquired the Canterbury property in 2011, bought it in mid-2012 and began asbestos abatement and construction this winter.
For Eric Leisge, 34, who suffered brain trauma 11 years ago that slows his thinking and partial paralysis on one side of his body, said being able to live at Canterbury is more than just a place to live with a low rent. He pays $405 a month, the lowest at the complex, Maline said, because he can’t work and is on disability.
“The idea of living alone had never occurred to me, but now that I am, I am not living by anyone else’s schedule and there’s a lot of beauty in that,” Leisge said. “It’s just Walter and I who decide how the day unfolds.”
He takes Walter, his service dog, on several walks a day.
Mikelle Day, 27, suffers from Guillain-Barre syndrome that keeps her wheelchair bound and in which her immune system attacks her nervous system. Her doctors have said they project a 100 percent recovery, but until then she’s living in the Canterbury Apartments, where her apartment has all tables and surfaces closer to the ground where she can reach. She said things have been difficult since she was diagnosed last year, but her new apartment makes things easier.
“I just have to remember this is temporary and I can walk my way out of it,” Day said. “There’s something better than this, and I wouldn’t be here today if there wasn’t something bigger and better for me to be doing.”
Maline said the last five units available have already been assigned to Developmental Pathways clients.
Clayton Woullard: 303-954-2671 or cwoullard@denverpost.com
