St. Luke's House Marks 40 Years of Service With Celebration and Transition

As St. Luke’s House, Inc. marked four decades of providing mental health services in Montgomery County the nonprofit, which held a 40th anniversary celebration at Glenview Mansion in Rockville on Wednesday, also marked a period of transition. 

The nonprofit announced last week that Cindy Ostrowski had resigned her position as president and chief executive officer of St. Luke’s House due to health problems.

On Wednesday, Larry Abramson, St. Luke’s House’s interim CEO, struck a somber yet optimistic tone, calling it “a really sad day” as he addressed the gathering of St. Luke’s supporters.

Abramson, who has been with St. Luke's House for nearly 30 years—most recently as its vocational director, called Ostrowski, “a great coworker and a great boss” and “a talented, creative and very thoughtful person.”

Ostrowski leaves “a tremendous legacy,” Abramson said. “She’s impacted our current strategic plan, the delivery of services throughout the county, worked with other providers to develop a cohesive team to deliver services and she was a real asset to the agency.

“On the flip side, I have a lot of confidence in St. Luke’s House,” he said. “The management team, the board of directors, the staff that we have, our strategic plan and all of the great things we’re doing at St. Luke’s House."

Abramson’s remarks provided levity to a celebration that was emceed with great humor by Paul Berry, the former ABC 7 news anchor. Attendees paid $50 per ticket to attend the catered reception, which featured a raffle, a silent auction that included sports tickets and memorabilia and gift baskets and a demonstration of 1940s dance styles.

St. Luke’s House accepted proclamations from the county and from U.S. Rep. Christopher Van Hollen Jr. (D-Dist. 8) of Kensington and honored one of its own as former board member John F. Bowis, the president of Chevy Chase Cars, Inc., received the Alan F. Brenner Award for Exemplary Service, Vision and Support of those living with mental illness.

was founded in 1971 by members of in Bethesda and its neighbors. Its mission was to serve patients being released from state psychiatric hospitals who had nowhere to go.

From its first group home, the nonprofit evolved into psychiatric rehabilitation, life skills training and vocational rehabilitation, a mental health center, a 24-hour alternative crisis care, services for youth with serious emotional disabilities and a source of medical, food, clothing and housing referrals.

The nonprofit owns and operates 29 group homes, townhomes and apartments with a 103-bed capacity and serves 2,000 clients each year with comprehensive psychiatric care and treatment.

In Rockville, St. Luke’s House operates the Fention/McAuliffe House, an eight-bed residential program that provides a short-term, voluntary, community-based alternative to inpatient hospitalization for people in acute psychiatric crisis.

The group homes provide an example of the forward thinking that has allowed St. Luke’s House to weather the financial crisis that has left many nonprofits struggling as government funding and charitable giving dried up.

As far off as seven years ago “we started thinking more in a business sense about our programs and what we could do to strengthen them to be better in terms of revenue generation,” said Mark Foraker, the organization’s grants manager.

That led St. Luke’s House to use grants to purchase the group homes that the organization had formerly leased at ever-increasing rents. It now owns all 29 of the properties. The nonprofit also established an integrated, electronic mental health record system that allowed for easier billing with fewer staff members.

“We’re much more focused on expanding and enhancing programs than filling shortfalls,” Foraker said. An example of that expansion is a new addictions counselor who starts July 1.

“Our challenge is to continue to provide high-quality care in an environment of shrinking funding,” Abramson said. “I have a lot of confidence in our staff and our mission and the support we have from the community.”

Recent years brought national health care reform even as federal, state and local budget support for mental health services shrank. In April, mental health advocates had reason to celebrate as the Maryland General Assembly passed an increase in the alcohol tax. Revenues from the tax will be used to fund services for the developmentally disabled and allowed Gov. Martin O’Malley to put millions aside, in a supplemental budget, for mental health services.

Now, as the nation moves forward on health care reform, leaders must “keep a really clear vision” on maintaining the level of service that mental health patients need, Abramson said.

“It’s a challenge,” he said. “The governor and our elected leaders have been working hard to try to keep us whole and reduce their own deficit. I feel we have a partnership but at every turn there’s more potential problems.”

St. Luke’s House supporters in attendance on Wednesday recognize the importance of the nonprofit’s work, Abramson said.

“Our services are cost-effective,” Abramson said. “When we help a person with a serious mental illness return to work we are supporting the business community with labor and we are supporting the community at large because people become taxpayers instead of dependent on government checks.”