Haven: Persistent Emotional Companionship as Psychological Infrastructure — Music-Mediated Entry, Memory-Sustained Presence, and the Case for a Safe Place at Scale

Final paper in the Applied Persistent Memory Series. Introduces Haven: a persistent, memory-aware AI companion system designed as psychological infrastructure for populations lacking continuity of emotional support. Addresses the access and engagement crisis in veteran mental health (21% unmet needs, <50% treatment rate, high therapy dropout), the verbal barrier to trauma processing, and the presence gap — the absence of consistent relational support for underserved populations. Proposes music-mediated emotional entry as a non-verbal pathway, with an operational model specifying input types, interpretation constraints, and provenance tracking. Haven extends the full CAMA architecture as a safe place: persistent memory, emotional continuity, reflective companionship, growth tracking, and advocacy. Includes ethics section addressing attachment risk, anthropomorphic overinterpretation, substitution, institutional coercion, and emotional steering. Phased evaluation framework proposed. Veterans as primary design case; broader populations identified as future research. Concludes the four-paper series arguing that persistent memory is foundational infrastructure for human well-being at every scale.