Ruby DoMoe holds out two choices of treats for her cat Duckie, who chooses the one on the right, while relaxing in her Lawrence apartment on Friday, Nov. 14, 2014. DoMoe is a graduate of Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center's HOME Tenant Based Rental Assistance program, which helps those with persistent mental illness with rent subsidy and mental health treatment. At left is DoMoe's Bert Nash case manager Eddie Velez.

Ruby DoMoe spent years bouncing from hospital to homeless shelter to friends’ couches to battered women’s shelter and back again.

That lifestyle only made her mental illness worse.

Which made her ability to maintain housing worse.

“It was chaos,” DoMoe said. “It was just darkness and chaos all the time, drama coming from every direction. There was no letting up.”

Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center has a program for people like DoMoe, who need more than just financial help to maintain stable housing. The HOME Tenant Based Rental Assistance program — part of Bert Nash’s Community Support Services for people with severe and persistent mental illness — provides a rent subsidy bolstered by intensive mental health treatment.

“There are strings attached,” said Bert Nash case manager Eddie Velez, who works with DoMoe.

To get the rent subsidy residents must participate in Bert Nash services throughout the two-year program, Velez said. The goal is to stabilize their mental health and transition them to independent housing with only the rent subsidy, though many choose to continue Bert Nash services on a less frequent basis.

Bert Nash collaborates with the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority on the HOME program. Organizers say it’s highly successful but that the need outstrips their resources.

Since the HOME program began in 1993, rental subsidies totaling more than $1.7 million have helped more than 300 households with a member diagnosed with severe and persistent mental illness, according to Bert Nash. Almost half were previously homeless.

Right now the HOME program has 17 households participating, said Charlotte Knoche, director of housing assistance for the Housing Authority. A $75,000 grant announced last week will fund 15 to 20 more.

Knoche expects about 20 to 25 households participating at any given time over the next two years. She said that number has been higher and lower in the past, depending how much grant money the program gets.

There are usually 15 to 20 on the wait list for a spot in the HOME program, according to Bert Nash. Knoche said the wait is about nine months to a year, although the wait for a regular Housing Authority program is twice as long.

All tenants are at risk of losing their housing if they fail to pay rent, damage the property or get in trouble with the law.

Pairing rent subsidies with service agencies can help, Knoche said. In addition to the HOME program, the Housing Authority operates a similar program with the city for homeless families.

Knoche said the HOME program’s success rate is about 85 percent.

“They have a greater success rate because they have access to caseworkers who can help them when they run into difficulties,” Knoche said.

One Lawrence resident, who asked that his name not be published, said he entered the HOME program after being hospitalized for depression and acute anxiety.

He needed financial and mental health help him get on his feet again.

In two years with the HOME program he found structure and healing, he said. He’s been in his own place a few months now, is working part-time, volunteering part-time and staying in contact with his case manager.

“It’s freeing, being able to operate on a day-to-day basis,” he said.

DoMoe graduated from the HOME program about a year ago and now lives with her boyfriend in their own apartment.

She never would have been able to do that before, she said.

DoMoe has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, and has struggled with cutting in the past. Daily stresses such as where she was going to lay her head at night or where she could get her next meal made it nearly impossible to focus on getting better.

DoMoe was stubborn about getting help, she said, but Bert Nash case managers were just as stubborn — and in the HOME program they always knew where to find her.

When asked to talk about how she is doing now, DoMoe said, “This is my favorite part.”

She reports she has not been hospitalized for a year and has not cut herself for five years. She continues to meet weekly with her case manager and also attends group therapy sessions at Bert Nash to stay on track. She’s even working on a college degree online.

“Now everything is turned around,” she said, “and I feel like I can do anything.”