Tre Jackson said he was amazed by what he found at the Oasis Clubhouse on his first visit.
“There’s so much you can do,” he says, taking a break from working on rap songs in the small recording studio in the clubhouse. “I can go into the art room and draw, paint and sculpt. Go to the fitness room and improve my health everyday.”
Jackson, 22, also says the clubhouse has helped his mental health, which is his core mission.
“I can say it helped me become a better person mentally and emotionally,” she said. “It helped me understand that no matter what situation I was going through in life, I would always get out of it.”
Oasis is one of 10 clubhouses contracted with the Behavioral Health Services division of the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency. Each offers a place for people with mental health issues to socialize, participate in activities, learn job skills, and find a support system.
Piedad Garcia, deputy director of Behavioral Health Services, Adults & Older Adult System of Care, says he brought the clubhouse concept to San Diego after visiting the Fountain House Clubhouse in New York 20 years ago.
“We started in San Diego to meet the needs of people with mental illness so they can socialize, drop in, meet other people, focus on educational goals, work goals, and recovery goals,” he said, adding that keeping people away from mental hospitals and helping them become self-reliant is also a goal.
Garcia said the country strives for all clubhouses to follow an international best practice model, which includes a focus on activities run by colleagues. Meeting Place, the first to open in the county, is the only local clubhouse fully accredited by Clubhouse International, while six others are certified and are working towards accreditation.
Three of the county’s clubhouses focus on specific populations, including Oasis, which caters to youth transitioning ages 16 to 26 and is run by Pathways Community Services on Market Street in the Stockton neighborhood east of downtown San Diego.
Connections 2 Community Clubhouse in downtown San Diego is run by the National Alliance on Mental Illness and is exclusively for the homeless, and the DCS Clubhouse in National City is run by Deaf Community Services of San Diego for loved ones or hard of hearing .
Jahi Veasey (left) and Tre Jackson record the original rap song in the music studio at the Oasis Clubhouse.
(Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
NAMI also runs the Casa del Centro Clubhouse in central San Diego and the Plaza clubhouse in South County, and the Mental Health System runs the Escondido Clubhouse and Mariposa Clubhouse in Oceanside.
The Union of Pan Asian Communities operates the East West Clubhouse in Kearny Mesa and the Community Research Foundation operates the East Corner Clubhouse in El Cajon.
At Oceanside, several members spoke of their experience at the Mariposa Clubhouse as life-changing, describing the facilities at the county-owned building on Mission Avenue as a place where they can feel normal.
Dan Kaspernick has been a clubhouse member for nine years and is now a peer support specialist.
“This is my wheelhouse,” he said as he helped prepare lunch in the clubhouse kitchen. “I feel like I’m making a difference with my team-mates.”
Kaspernick, 56, has worked as a teacher and in warehouses and restaurants, but says bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder make the job difficult.
“The most important thing for me at the time was adjusting,” says Kaspernick, who runs a Christian-based support group and “healing arts” class that makes watercolors, friendship bracelets and poetry.
Rodney McGough, a homeless person on Oceanside and who frequently speaks about the need for trauma-informed mental health therapy, occasionally stops by the Mariposa Clubhouse and picks up a guitar to cheer people on in the lobby.
(Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
“As a peer support specialist, I use my life experiences to help others with their struggles,” she says. “Mariposa is a great place for people like me. There is acceptance of people with brain disorders. Often there is no place for people to go. They feel isolated and scared.”
Michael Barritt said he had several distractions and was used to living at home alone before he discovered the clubhouse in 2019.
“There’s nowhere for me to go,” he said. “I feel crazy. I am on medication and have severe anxiety. I have no place to hang out or be with other people like I do. I felt alone, and then I found this place and started coming every day, five times a week, and making friends.”
Barritt started an improv group at the clubhouse, where he says he represents the LGBTQ community.
“I feel alone and bored at home,” she said. “Here, I stay about five or six hours. I can go to groups, I can learn about myself, I can meet people and go sightseeing. It really helped me as a person to like myself and take better care of myself. I knew I had something to wake up to, and something to live with that day.”
Mariposa Clubhouse program manager Kelly Villa said about 1,000 people were members of the clubhouse, which is open Monday-Friday. The clubhouse hosts events and events on Thursdays, including trips to concerts in March, and members participate in community meetings with staff to make decisions about what they will do each month.
Beth Ann Alex, 64, said she had made friends at the clubhouse and enjoyed field trips and events. He was on medication and had a psychotic episode and was hospitalized, but said he felt peaceful and stable at the clubhouse, where he has been a member since 2017.
Beth Ann Alex (right), along with the rest of the group clean up after lunch at the Mariposa Clubhouse on Oceanside.
(Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
“I would be lost without this place,” he said. “It feels good to be able to say that you are normal.”
George Kobayashi — everyone knows him as Kobé — is 52 years old and bipolar. He has been coming to the clubhouse for almost four years.
“I’m very susceptible to isolation,” he said. “Coming here builds a bit of hope. This place is inspiring. It helped me come out of a shell of feeling very, very lonely at times.”
Kobayashi said he felt he had entered a positive new chapter in his life since joining the clubhouse, where he felt an acceptance he had not experienced before.
“No matter their level of mental health, everyone treats everyone here as normal people,” he said.
Jason Pache, 48, says he has had schizoaffective disorder but has been stable since 2009. He has held jobs as a creative writing teacher and with Boys & Girls Club and holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from California State University San Marcos. He leads the literature program at the clubhouse.
“I like the solidarity here, the inclusivity,” he said. “I feel like I can come here and be myself. Often times, society would lower me to the periphery, like kicking me out and abandoning me. I feel great here, that I can be accepted and don’t have to follow the norms of society, and be celebrated here for my own uniqueness.”
Welcome sign in reception area at Mariposa Clubhouse on Oceanside.
(Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Mary Elizabeth Lopez, 54, has been a member since 2010 and said she had several mental health issues and had been hospitalized.
“I was like a mini success story,” he said. “I have come a long way from when I first came here. I have no goals. I’m not looking for a job. Now I have a goal. I just have a new outlook on life, more positive than negative. And it’s all because of this place.”
Sisters Pauline Diaz, 35, and Monica Gutierrez, 28, have been coming to the clubhouse for about a year and also say it has had a positive impact on their lives.
“I was in a dark place in my life because of depression,” said Diaz, who recently got a food handler card after taking classes at the clubhouse. “I just don’t want to be around people. I just want to be home. I tried it (clubhouse), and I feel it helps me get out of my comfort zone. I’m more social.”
Gutierrez said he has post-traumatic stress disorder and was encouraged to go to the clubhouse by his sister.
“I’m not leaving the house,” he said. “I don’t want to get out of bed all day. Coming here makes me more social. Before, I wouldn’t be able to go to people and talk to them.”
At the Oasis Clubhouse, unemployment specialist Eddie Padilla says he helps members find work through a partnership with Back2Work.
“I look for work based on their needs and wants,” he said. “If they don’t have transportation, I will take them to their workplace. I help with interviewing skills and I check on them to see how they are doing in their jobs.”
Padilla helped find a job at the California Department of Transportation for Colby Harmon, 21, who had been coming to the clubhouse for a month.
“They have a great opportunity here,” said Harmon. “You just have to take advantage of them. You can’t just sit back and wait for an opportunity.”
Harmon says he suffers from PTSD, depression, and outbursts of anger, and he appreciates the calm he finds at the clubhouse. Homeless, he spends the night at a shelter operated by Pastor Joe’s Villages in Golden Hall, where he says the neighborhood can be chaotic. Sometimes he takes naps at the clubhouse to catch up on sleep.
The clubhouse has a sports room that doubles as a games room with table tennis, football and surfboards that members can take out for walks to the beach. Another room has a sofa and TV for watching movies, and clients can get their hair cut in another room twice a week. Mary Ellen Baraceros, regional director of San Diego County Pathways, said the clubhouse had about 450 members last year.
Aljandra Byrd, 21, says she loves making art at the clubhouse.
“It’s a way to distract me from thinking about my anxiety and impulsivity and depression,” she says. “If I am with other people and express myself, it helps me to control myself.”
Francisco Campana has been coming to the clubhouse for seven years, and at 25 he will be dropping out of the program.
“I was completely isolated,” he recalls of how he felt at the age of 17, when he joined the clubhouse. “I am very anti-social and take care of myself. In the first week, I’m not going to lie, I did force myself to come. But this place is really cozy. I started to open up. With small steps, I started to become more social.”
Campana said she loved the trip to Rady Children’s Hospital, where she and others would volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House. Today he works in a rehabilitation facility near the clubhouse, and occasionally refers his younger patients to Oasis.
Although he won’t be able to continue as a member after his next birthday, Campana said he hopes to stay connected to the clubhouse in some way.
“Seven years ago, I was very quiet and didn’t open up to anyone,” he said. “Now, I’m social. I love volunteering. They really help me when I’m down. Honestly, I owe this place my life. I don’t know where I would be if they weren’t here.”