Editor’s Note: TakePart is collaborating with Community Access to bring you stories from their employees and housing residents. This is part of our Special Report on Homelessness inspired by The Soloist. Check back each week for more stories from Community Access.

By Kurt Sass

I worked for 18 years, mainly in the mortgage lending industry. Then I had a major psychiatric breakdown. I was hospitalized three times, had 22 electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments, and was out of work for two years. For months I lay in bed, paralyzed by depression and prey to suicidal thoughts. I traveled the route of psychotherapists and psychiatrists. When I finally found the medication regime that was right for me and was able to return to work, no one would hire me…not even in mortgage lending.

I sent out 96 resumes and received not one positive response. Not one invitation to interview. Positions mysteriously disappeared. I was ‘not quite’ what they were looking for.

My 97th resume went to Community Access. They called me for an interview. I was thrilled, yet apprehensive about disclosing my psychiatric history. Soon I found out that the organization’s policy is to hire at least 51 percent consumer staff…meaning people who have been through the mental health system and know how to talk to others who are going through it.

I’ve been working at Community Access for the past four years, first as a service coordinator and today as office manager. Again and again, my personal experience has proved helpful to those who seek our help.

One of our tenants (we’ll call him ‘George’ to protect his privacy) came into the office one day looking terrible. He said his stomach had been hurting him for weeks. I suggested the cause might be medication side effects. ‘How would you know?’ he asked. I told him I’d had similar stomach pains when I was on Lithium. ‘You were on Lithium?’ George looked flabbergasted. ‘Why?’ I briefly explained my mental health history, including the side effects I’d experienced with Lithium. That made me a fellow consumer and earned George’s trust. After that, he really opened up to me. He told me about all the medications he was taking and that the recent changes in those meds seemed to coincide with the onset of his severe abdominal pains. I suggested he talk to his psychiatrist, as I had done, about the possibility of adjusting his medications. George followed my advice and obtained relief.

In my position at Community Access, I’ve talked to people who have spent time in psychiatric hospitals and had undergone ECT. When I tell them I’ve been there and had that, they trust me, and a dialogue begins.

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Kurt Sass is the Office Manager at Community Access.