by Owen Wiese
The neighbor is Holly Schleuter, who works for Minnehaha County Human Services, which provides many services to the people of the county and to Garretson.
Holly, who has a Teaching degree and a degree in Sports Medicine, had been teaching school early in her career in western South Dakota. She and her husband Jay decided that they wanted to live closer to relatives and friends. They moved back to eastern South Dakota. Holly planned to find a teaching position, but instead she accepted a job where she provided case management for kids with special needs. Holly has been employed in the social services field since that time. She became aware of Minnehaha County Human Services, and very quickly made the decision to work for them. She felt that it would give her the opportunity to work in a job that helped people in need.
Some of the services county Human Services provide are; Jail Reentry Services, which are sometimes very difficult to provide, because of the stigma of serving a jail or prison sentence; Safe Home, which is a service to help people secure first housing; and Synergy, which provides Family Case Management. Synergy helps families solve problems that affect their living situations. Holly works for Synergy.
The mission of Synergy is to provide a community-wide collaborative approach to the family with short term financial support and care facilitation to homeless families, empowering them to obtain adequate housing. That is a big mission and it involves many people and many groups. Holly and one other person are Minnehaha County Human Services Synergy Case Managers. Every time a family comes to Minnehaha County Services requiring help with their living situation, they are assigned a Case Manager who finds the help they need.
There are many challenges to finding adequate housing for families, such as felony history, poor credit, mental health issues, low incomes, and weak social connections. Problems that have to be solved are many; willing landlords, domestic violence, a lack of transportation, barriers to shelter for single fathers with young children, mothers with older boys and others. There are almost daily occasions when the Case worker contacts Children’s Inn because a family has been housed there due to abuse. (Holly recommends charitable donations to Children’s Inn because they do such a good job of helping abused families).
Each case of a person or family needing help is very different, but Holly emphasized that the solution is not reached by the Synergy Case Worker by herself, but by a team of people working together. Some of those persons and groups are: Children’s Inn, Sioux Falls School District, Law Enforcement agencies, City of Sioux Falls Officials, Minnehaha/Lincoln County Human Services, Veterans Administration, St. Francis House, Lutheran Social Services, Furniture Mission, Bishop Dudley House, Union Gospel Mission, Inter-Lakes Community Action, and the Community Outreach, to name a few. Garretson Treasure Chest and Nordstrom Automotive have also made valuable donations to families on her caseload.
There are at least two other entities that help addicts that are not listed with the others. Oxford House, of which there several in Sioux Falls, are homes where several addicts live together and work to help their housemates overcome their addiction.
Another one which was just published in the Feb. 23, Argus Leader is a triage facility where people would be sobered up then sent to the appropriate agency, and not go to the hospital emergency rooms. The case which was cited was of the person who had made more than 100 visits to each of the two hospital emergency rooms in Sioux Falls in the past year. Addiction of any kind is a very severe illness which can rarely be overcome by oneself.
With all the knowledge and experience she has, Holly emphasized that Sioux Falls is a good and caring city which works very hard to make sure that the homeless and disadvantaged people who live there, are taken care of. It is a huge job, sometimes complicated by the prevalence of drugs and the over use of alcohol, as well as numerous other challenges families face on a daily basis.
Holly has a very challenging job to which she is very dedicated to and has wonderful results. She says she does not take her job home with her. When you see Holly, praise her and thank her.
When Holly does go home, she goes home to Jay, an independent builder who does a very good job. He is also an avid fisherman, and also does very well with that. Also at home is Cole 12, and Chloe 16. Chayce is 20 and is in vocational school learning to be a welder.
