Project Amistad

Transportation: Project Amistad provides transportation to eligible medicaid clients, children with special health care needs (cshcn) services program clients and transportation for indigent cancer patients (ticp) who are diagnosed with cancer or cancer-related illness and meet program financial and residential eligibility criteria and who have no other means of transportation. Delivery of service starts as early as 5:30 am and as late as 7:00 pm monday through saturday. Project Amistad provides services on holidays with the exception of three, thanksgiving, christmas, and new year's. Sunday transportation is required if agency decides to close on the three holidays. Recipients must contact the call center for the approval of the trip. Project Amistad subcontracts with 3 transit providers to provide services within 23 counties. In fy 2022, Amistad provided approximately 43,811 trips.

Guardianship program and money management: Project Amistad remains one of the most important community resources for persons who have been deemed by the court system to be unable to care for their own health and welfare. Our guardianship team works diligently to ensure that the persons under guardianship, approximately 393, have appropriate shelter, food, clothing, medical care and mental health treatment. The program currently serves individuals ranging from 21 to 101 years of age throughout 36 counties in far west Texas. The agency continues its close association with several agencies to include the Texas department of aging and disability services (dads), adult protective services (aps), bienvivir all-inclusive health center and many other community-based agencies to provide high quality professional guardianship services. The county of el paso and dads contract with Project Amistad to take care of these clients. All guardians are certified through the state of Texas. Money management services are provided to persons who are unable to manage their own finances. Money management services are an important part of Project Amistad's efforts to ease burdens for persons served. The program is funded by a grant from the community development block grant (cdbg) program through the city of el paso. Project Amistad clients who have been identified as needing assistance in managing their own finances are provided comprehensive and professional money management assistance by a case manager. Among the referring sources were the probate court, adult protective services (aps) and the social security administration (ssa). We currently have a caseload of 49 clients. Within these program services, the "el camino a casa" program funded by the city of el paso, is aimed to address homelessness in the community by providing rapid rehousing, homeless prevention, and street outreach. In fy 2022, 684 clients were assisted through homeless programs. Currently we have an arpa street outreach grant with the city of el paso to provide street outreach to homeless individuals. The services provided are case management, meals and snacks are provided as well as personal items and also clients are assisted in locating shelter to avoid them spending the night in a place not meant for human habitation. We also have a case management grant through cdbg to assist homeless clients with case management and personal items as well as help them pay fees to regain identity and also lodging in the event that there is no shelter availability. Lastly we have a permanent supportive housing through the continuum of care. In this program chronically homeless clients are provided rental assistance along with case management to help them regain stability.

Aging and disability resource program: the aging, disability & transportation resource center (adtrc) provides information on long-term services and supports, as well as affordable, accessible, and integrated housing options. The adtrc is considered a one-stop shop, community-based center that can help to locate and provide guidance counseling to understanding a comprehensive range of resources available. Staff is trained and certified to provide the following services, utility payment, locating affordable and accessible housing, enrollment into the medicare savings programs, processing tanf, snap, medicaid applications, guidance counseling, referrals for home modifications for persons with disabilities, emergency homeless services, mental health services, guidance on services and supports for veterans & their beneficiaries, persons with disabilities, elderly, families in distress, offer volunteer mentorship opportunities and financial educational courses for individuals with intellectual developmental disability (idd), and process marketplace insurance enrollment applications. Amistad's adtrc is one of 28 adrcs within the state of Texas. In fy22 the adtrc answered a total of 18,941 phone calls, processed 5,467 utility assistance applications, assisted a total of 531 veterans & beneficiaries, and assisted a total of 15,513 individuals with marketplace inquiries and enrollments.