I am deeply grateful for having the opportunity to speak to you all about myself and INCube. I hope to be able to tell you a little about not only what I’ve gone through but who I have become in my struggles to not only be a survivor but a person who celebrates life.
My job for the last ten years has been to grow and develop INCube, Inc., a consumer-run, 501(c)3, whose mission is to assist recipients in developing businesses and service projects and find mainstream employment. Under the umbrella of INCube is Inca Housing, a 50 unit scattered-site apartment program, and Stage 2!/Youth Services, a peer service for youth-at-risk. To me, having my job has allowed me to have had the blessing to have had a dream and see it realized in my own lifetime, and for this feeling I have no words.
For me, most of my life was spent suffering from isolation and fear. As a small child, I could hear music and voices, which made it difficult for me to learn to read and write. We moved a lot and I always had to adjust to a new school. I grew up mostly in Washington, D.C., where my father worked for Robert Kennedy in the Office of Economic Opportunity. During the "War on Poverty", his work was very important. He would take us to the Indian reservation and migrant labor camps where he was getting the government to do community development through housing, education and employment. I didn’t understand what he did, but I always wanted to do it. My father got his education while there were still quotas on how many Jews were allowed to be in school.
Some of you may not know that the consumer movement began as the Mental Patients’ Liberation Front, and early leaders like Howie the Harp modeled their actions after the black civil rights movement, and somewhat later, the women’s liberation movement. It was a time when Martin Luther King said, "I have a dream!" and made people who were in pain all over the country realize that they too had dreams and together there was hope and action, which framed the whole period of time in the sixties and early seventies. The word was "freedom."
As a child, I had so many dreams but could never find a way to let them out of my heart and make them real except through music and dance, yet my learning disability prevented so many things. I was often afraid, angry, and confused. It would take me many years to learn to read and write. Being illiterate can make you feel like you are crippled.
My life brought me to New York and, to make a long story short, I became chronically ill from manic depression, the symptoms of which I suffered for many years not knowing what it was. Sick and helpless, and almost alone in New York as a film and television student at New York University, I ended up sleeping in Union Square, and anyone who has lived in the street and been sick knows that the events that brought me to care were a miracle. After that, I lost touch with my family and became a child of the system. The experience of Union Square and no care left me with neurological damage. Hospitalized in the seventies, large doses of thorazine and anti-psychotics were used. Now, I thank God that people are recognizing that trauma is not psychosis.
I was in the system for seven years. I had nine psychiatric hospitalizations and was a client in Altro Sheltered Workshop, the Postgraduate Center, FEGS, and Rehabilitation Services. I intermittently lived in welfare hotels and adult foster care. I saw, heard, and felt may things in these years. I had the same yearnings and pain as I did as a child. I finally got a job at Macy’s, through Rehabilitation Support Services, currently the Bayside IPRT.
I had the privilege of being able to heal well enough that I was able to work my way through school to get degrees in Business Management Economics and Media. In 1984, I was accepted at the City University Law School at Queens College. It is one of the only law schools in the country with a majority of minority students specializing in public interest law. VESID helped me with this. I perfected reading and even learned to read what wasn’t written. I graduated law school in 1989, with a Doctorate of Jurisprudence, which also in old English, makes me a "Squire of the Court." Thus, I used the title "Esquire" to connote the level of my professional education, but most people just call me Mimi.
After school, I did street law and especially liked to study estates and property law. My most intriguing concept as a theoretician is the concept of ownership, and principles of economic development for disenfranchised classes.
In 1989, I was hired (for no money) as the Executive Director of INCube, then only an idea on paper. Since no one would hire me as a litigator, due to my mood swings, I seized the opportunity to have the potential to create my own job.
The conceptualization of INCube foresaw the application of entrepreneurial techniques in rehabilitation as a vocational alternative to sheltered workshops and day treatment vocational training. It was a call to the need for the system to realize the hopes, dreams, skills and capabilities of persons, many times remaining idle in institutions and standard settings. We as peers, and like hearts, knew the need to bring structure, pragmatic skills (like problem solving), and resource development to our peers to assist them in carving out the reality of their dreams. For me, the job is taking the spirit, the feelings, and the wants and desires we have struggled with and assisting people to know how to use law, contracting, legal structure, finance, accounting, brokering, marketing, and management skills to become who we can be, to become self-sufficient to afford our choices, have something you’ve earned to go on a date or buy something that doesn’t come from a thrift shop, and can help you save money to pay for your own future.
INCube currently runs two business programs, sponsored by the New York City Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Alcoholism Services, to assist individuals into self-sufficiency. It has been a great honor for us to have the support of Commissioner Neil Cohen, of not only hearing us, but listening to us.
I have learned, in my ongoing recovery, foremost to desire to live and to nurture others in their lives. I put my health maintenance first, my job next, and now I am trying to learn to build a home. If you would like to come and meet us at INCube, please call us at 212-947-3040. We are trained professionals who also know what it feels like.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Legal Actions
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Legal Actions
I am deeply grateful for having the opportunity to speak to you all about myself and INCube. I hope to be able to tell you a little about not only what I’ve gone through but who I have become in my struggles to not only be a survivor but a person who celebrates life.
My job for the last ten years has been to grow and develop INCube, Inc., a consumer-run, 501(c)3, whose mission is to assist recipients in developing businesses and service projects and find mainstream employment. Under the umbrella of INCube is Inca Housing, a 50 unit scattered-site apartment program, and Stage 2!/Youth Services, a peer service for youth-at-risk. To me, having my job has allowed me to have had the blessing to have had a dream and see it realized in my own lifetime, and for this feeling I have no words.
For me, most of my life was spent suffering from isolation and fear. As a small child, I could hear music and voices, which made it difficult for me to learn to read and write. We moved a lot and I always had to adjust to a new school. I grew up mostly in Washington, D.C., where my father worked for Robert Kennedy in the Office of Economic Opportunity. During the "War on Poverty", his work was very important. He would take us to the Indian reservation and migrant labor camps where he was getting the government to do community development through housing, education and employment. I didn’t understand what he did, but I always wanted to do it. My father got his education while there were still quotas on how many Jews were allowed to be in school.
Some of you may not know that the consumer movement began as the Mental Patients’ Liberation Front, and early leaders like Howie the Harp modeled their actions after the black civil rights movement, and somewhat later, the women’s liberation movement. It was a time when Martin Luther King said, "I have a dream!" and made people who were in pain all over the country realize that they too had dreams and together there was hope and action, which framed the whole period of time in the sixties and early seventies. The word was "freedom."
As a child, I had so many dreams but could never find a way to let them out of my heart and make them real except through music and dance, yet my learning disability prevented so many things. I was often afraid, angry, and confused. It would take me many years to learn to read and write. Being illiterate can make you feel like you are crippled.
My life brought me to New York and, to make a long story short, I became chronically ill from manic depression, the symptoms of which I suffered for many years not knowing what it was. Sick and helpless, and almost alone in New York as a film and television student at New York University, I ended up sleeping in Union Square, and anyone who has lived in the street and been sick knows that the events that brought me to care were a miracle. After that, I lost touch with my family and became a child of the system. The experience of Union Square and no care left me with neurological damage. Hospitalized in the seventies, large doses of thorazine and anti-psychotics were used. Now, I thank God that people are recognizing that trauma is not psychosis.
I was in the system for seven years. I had nine psychiatric hospitalizations and was a client in Altro Sheltered Workshop, the Postgraduate Center, FEGS, and Rehabilitation Services. I intermittently lived in welfare hotels and adult foster care. I saw, heard, and felt may things in these years. I had the same yearnings and pain as I did as a child. I finally got a job at Macy’s, through Rehabilitation Support Services, currently the Bayside IPRT.
I had the privilege of being able to heal well enough that I was able to work my way through school to get degrees in Business Management Economics and Media. In 1984, I was accepted at the City University Law School at Queens College. It is one of the only law schools in the country with a majority of minority students specializing in public interest law. VESID helped me with this. I perfected reading and even learned to read what wasn’t written. I graduated law school in 1989, with a Doctorate of Jurisprudence, which also in old English, makes me a "Squire of the Court." Thus, I used the title "Esquire" to connote the level of my professional education, but most people just call me Mimi.
After school, I did street law and especially liked to study estates and property law. My most intriguing concept as a theoretician is the concept of ownership, and principles of economic development for disenfranchised classes.
In 1989, I was hired (for no money) as the Executive Director of INCube, then only an idea on paper. Since no one would hire me as a litigator, due to my mood swings, I seized the opportunity to have the potential to create my own job.
The conceptualization of INCube foresaw the application of entrepreneurial techniques in rehabilitation as a vocational alternative to sheltered workshops and day treatment vocational training. It was a call to the need for the system to realize the hopes, dreams, skills and capabilities of persons, many times remaining idle in institutions and standard settings. We as peers, and like hearts, knew the need to bring structure, pragmatic skills (like problem solving), and resource development to our peers to assist them in carving out the reality of their dreams. For me, the job is taking the spirit, the feelings, and the wants and desires we have struggled with and assisting people to know how to use law, contracting, legal structure, finance, accounting, brokering, marketing, and management skills to become who we can be, to become self-sufficient to afford our choices, have something you’ve earned to go on a date or buy something that doesn’t come from a thrift shop, and can help you save money to pay for your own future.
INCube currently runs two business programs, sponsored by the New York City Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Alcoholism Services, to assist individuals into self-sufficiency. It has been a great honor for us to have the support of Commissioner Neil Cohen, of not only hearing us, but listening to us.
I have learned, in my ongoing recovery, foremost to desire to live and to nurture others in their lives. I put my health maintenance first, my job next, and now I am trying to learn to build a home. If you would like to come and meet us at INCube, please call us at 212-947-3040. We are trained professionals who also know what it feels like.
My job for the last ten years has been to grow and develop INCube, Inc., a consumer-run, 501(c)3, whose mission is to assist recipients in developing businesses and service projects and find mainstream employment. Under the umbrella of INCube is Inca Housing, a 50 unit scattered-site apartment program, and Stage 2!/Youth Services, a peer service for youth-at-risk. To me, having my job has allowed me to have had the blessing to have had a dream and see it realized in my own lifetime, and for this feeling I have no words.
For me, most of my life was spent suffering from isolation and fear. As a small child, I could hear music and voices, which made it difficult for me to learn to read and write. We moved a lot and I always had to adjust to a new school. I grew up mostly in Washington, D.C., where my father worked for Robert Kennedy in the Office of Economic Opportunity. During the "War on Poverty", his work was very important. He would take us to the Indian reservation and migrant labor camps where he was getting the government to do community development through housing, education and employment. I didn’t understand what he did, but I always wanted to do it. My father got his education while there were still quotas on how many Jews were allowed to be in school.
Some of you may not know that the consumer movement began as the Mental Patients’ Liberation Front, and early leaders like Howie the Harp modeled their actions after the black civil rights movement, and somewhat later, the women’s liberation movement. It was a time when Martin Luther King said, "I have a dream!" and made people who were in pain all over the country realize that they too had dreams and together there was hope and action, which framed the whole period of time in the sixties and early seventies. The word was "freedom."
As a child, I had so many dreams but could never find a way to let them out of my heart and make them real except through music and dance, yet my learning disability prevented so many things. I was often afraid, angry, and confused. It would take me many years to learn to read and write. Being illiterate can make you feel like you are crippled.
My life brought me to New York and, to make a long story short, I became chronically ill from manic depression, the symptoms of which I suffered for many years not knowing what it was. Sick and helpless, and almost alone in New York as a film and television student at New York University, I ended up sleeping in Union Square, and anyone who has lived in the street and been sick knows that the events that brought me to care were a miracle. After that, I lost touch with my family and became a child of the system. The experience of Union Square and no care left me with neurological damage. Hospitalized in the seventies, large doses of thorazine and anti-psychotics were used. Now, I thank God that people are recognizing that trauma is not psychosis.
I was in the system for seven years. I had nine psychiatric hospitalizations and was a client in Altro Sheltered Workshop, the Postgraduate Center, FEGS, and Rehabilitation Services. I intermittently lived in welfare hotels and adult foster care. I saw, heard, and felt may things in these years. I had the same yearnings and pain as I did as a child. I finally got a job at Macy’s, through Rehabilitation Support Services, currently the Bayside IPRT.
I had the privilege of being able to heal well enough that I was able to work my way through school to get degrees in Business Management Economics and Media. In 1984, I was accepted at the City University Law School at Queens College. It is one of the only law schools in the country with a majority of minority students specializing in public interest law. VESID helped me with this. I perfected reading and even learned to read what wasn’t written. I graduated law school in 1989, with a Doctorate of Jurisprudence, which also in old English, makes me a "Squire of the Court." Thus, I used the title "Esquire" to connote the level of my professional education, but most people just call me Mimi.
After school, I did street law and especially liked to study estates and property law. My most intriguing concept as a theoretician is the concept of ownership, and principles of economic development for disenfranchised classes.
In 1989, I was hired (for no money) as the Executive Director of INCube, then only an idea on paper. Since no one would hire me as a litigator, due to my mood swings, I seized the opportunity to have the potential to create my own job.
The conceptualization of INCube foresaw the application of entrepreneurial techniques in rehabilitation as a vocational alternative to sheltered workshops and day treatment vocational training. It was a call to the need for the system to realize the hopes, dreams, skills and capabilities of persons, many times remaining idle in institutions and standard settings. We as peers, and like hearts, knew the need to bring structure, pragmatic skills (like problem solving), and resource development to our peers to assist them in carving out the reality of their dreams. For me, the job is taking the spirit, the feelings, and the wants and desires we have struggled with and assisting people to know how to use law, contracting, legal structure, finance, accounting, brokering, marketing, and management skills to become who we can be, to become self-sufficient to afford our choices, have something you’ve earned to go on a date or buy something that doesn’t come from a thrift shop, and can help you save money to pay for your own future.
INCube currently runs two business programs, sponsored by the New York City Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Alcoholism Services, to assist individuals into self-sufficiency. It has been a great honor for us to have the support of Commissioner Neil Cohen, of not only hearing us, but listening to us.
I have learned, in my ongoing recovery, foremost to desire to live and to nurture others in their lives. I put my health maintenance first, my job next, and now I am trying to learn to build a home. If you would like to come and meet us at INCube, please call us at 212-947-3040. We are trained professionals who also know what it feels like.
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