Legal briefs: News from around NH

Jessica Renda didn’t realize that things were about to get difficult when her eldest daughter was discharged last summer from New Hampshire Hospital, a state-run psychiatric facility.

After treatment for her mental health illness, Renda’s daughter, now 23, needed a place to live where she would get the supportive care to help her get back on her feet. Due to the family’s situation, the ideal option was transitional housing.

But the waiting list for transitional housing that would provide the counseling, medication and support to find a job, stretched for months.

With four younger kids at home, Renda couldn’t take her older daughter home either.

Faced with limited options, she made a difficult decision for one night – placing her daughter in a homeless shelter for women.

“We were really struggling with how to find her a place to live,” said Renda, 47, who lives in Milford. “That was probably one of the most stressful times as a mother to be like, ‘I have to put my daughter in a homeless shelter.’ That is not a good situation for people with mental health issues.”

Renda’s situation echoes a common challenge for many others in inpatient psychiatric facilities.

Across the state, 19 patients who are stable for discharge are waiting at New Hampshire Hospital for a transitional housing bed to free up, according to the Department of Health and Human Services update on Tuesday.

Senate Bill 410 attempts to address this issue by establishing a fund that provides up to $25,000 per bed to either support existing transitional housing or establish new ones in the community for individuals facing mental health challenges. The bill further allocates funds to cover the financial deficits in operating these housing services.

State Senator Becky Whitley, the bill’s prime sponsor, said these important services for individuals with mental health illness come at a cost for Community Mental Health Centers.

“This is particularly problematic for supportive housing because there is no Medicaid reimbursement, almost no state funds provided so that means that all supportive housing Programs operated by CMHCs do operate at a financial loss,” said Whitley, a Hopkinton Democrat.

Riverbend Community Mental Health, a nonprofit offering behavioral services runs three residential programs but it is under financial strain.

For transitional housing for 10 residents, the mental health provider loses about $250,000 annually, said Lisa Madden, CEO at Riverbend Community Mental Health.

“We have a mission to keep those available in the community and are very committed to that,” Madden said at a Senate hearing last week.“But as our resources continue to struggle, we do not have access to additional COVID supports or things along that line, it’s getting harder and harder to keep them functioning.”

Renda kept hoping to find transitional housing for her daughter, but the wait was too long and her daughter was reluctant to remain in the hospital.

“100% that would be the best option for her,” she said. “They aren’t long term but having that in-between setting to help her get a little more stable would have helped.”

Insufficient transitional housing resources not only impact those who are waiting but also contribute to the prolonged waitlist for inpatient psychiatric beds — a persistent shortage in New Hampshire.

Those who could be discharged from New Hampshire Hospital take up space that they no longer need, while individuals who require acute psychiatric treatment wait in hospital emergency rooms for a treatment bed to free up.

The bill also helps to achieve the state’s “Mission Zero” plan which seeks to eliminate the boarding of psychiatric patients in emergency departments by 2025.

As a mother who has witnessed her eldest daughter’s struggles with mental health and behavioral issues since the age of 15, including hospitalizations, the bill brings relief for Renda.

“I think there’s a huge need for more transitional housing and this bill is wonderful,” she said. “I can’t imagine how many people when there’s not enough space for them just start to go back out to living on the streets.”

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org. 

— SRUTHI GOPALAKRISHNAN/CONCORD MONITOR

Julie Smiley appointed as Bar Foundation associate executive director

Julie Smiley working in her new office at the New Hampshire Bar Center. (Tom Jarvis/NH Bar Review)

The New Hampshire Bar Foundation is pleased to announce Julie Smiley as the new associate executive director. In her role, she will serve as a liaison between the Bar Foundation’s board of directors, the NHBA, and its members. She is also responsible for managing IOLTA funds, funds held with the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, and other donated and/or awarded funds.
Smiley most recently worked as a housing advocate and property manager at the Front Door Agency in Nashua, where she managed its security deposit loan program and served as property manager for affordable housing units. While there, she instituted an Advocacy Committee, leading and training the board of directors in legislative efforts, and initiated a bill to limit rental application fees.
“A strong belief in social justice has motivated my philanthropic and professional endeavors,” Smiley says. “I am thrilled to join an organization where equal access to justice is the driving force. I’m looking forward to working with the Board of Governors to build the Bar Foundation’s capacity to bolster civic education and access to justice here in New Hampshire.”
Smiley grew up in Wolverhampton, a city in central England known in the 18th century for its metal manufacturers and was the location of the first working Newcomen Steam Engine in 1712. In 1927, it was the first British town to introduce automated traffic lights. However, according to Smiley, the city’s more recent distinction is less admirable.
“Wolverhampton was voted the most miserable town in England – twice,” Smiley says.
After graduating from the University of Wolverhampton with a degree in social policy and sociology (known here as a bachelor’s degree in social work), as well as a minor in philosophy, she moved across the pond to the United States before even picking up her diploma. (They mailed it to her mom.)
After working for a year as a teacher’s aide at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center, her visa expired, and she returned to the Sceptered Isle. There, she provided support for emotionally and behaviorally challenged adolescent boys until she was able to return to America, the home of apple pie (which is an ironic moniker considering apple pie actually originated in England).
In Massachusetts, she continued putting her social work skills to use: First, at WCI in Waltham assisting people with profound deafness and other disabilities with activities of daily living and employment opportunities – where she became “functionally fluent” in American Sign Language. Then, with Infusion Nurses Certification Corporation in Norwood – the only nationally accredited certification for infusion nursing – as a certification manager.
It was around this time that Smiley developed a penchant for legislative advocacy work. In 2018, she joined Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America as the membership lead, training and supporting local volunteers in legislative advocacy efforts and liaising with legislators in support of efforts to reduce gun violence.
In 2022, she initiated HB 1139 with the help of a state representative and testified in its support. The bill, which requires eyeglass prescriptions to contain interpupillary distance when requested by the patient, passed that same year. The idea for legislation was borne out of her frustrations in dealing with her ophthalmologist. She wished to purchase cheaper glasses online but needed to know her pupillary distance to do so. The doctor refused to disclose it, forcing her to purchase more expensive glasses through their office.
The following year, with the help of state representative Ellen Reid, she initiated another bill, HB 283, that recently passed a House floor vote. If passed, pending Senate deliberation, the bill would limit the rental application fees charged by a landlord as part of the rental application process for a residential property.
“Who knows what I’ll get a bee in my bonnet about next,” she says. “I’ve just always had a calling to want to help people and make a difference.”
Smiley is an avid hiker – having so far climbed 43 of the 48 “4,000-footers” in the state – and lives in Amherst with her husband and their two sons.

— TOM JARVIS/NH BAR NEWS