March 2024 Newsletter

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Preparing For The Future

Homeless men and women have a safe place at the Mission while preparing for the future. This is not just a waiting room, nor a guest resort. Even for entry level services, there is required sobriety, work therapy, chapel services, and social service achievements. This is a program of readiness for the next step.

Our clients are held accountable to be clean of drugs and sober from alcohol. For most, it’s sufficient to successfully move forward to employment and housing. To skip accountability and push functioning addicts into these positions is a recipe for disaster. People can wait here in a healthy environment for their appointment date to enter an off-site, inpatient recovery program. If a person is on a timeout from here for behavioral issues, then receives an acceptance into treatment, we will waive any remaining time, as long as sobriety is maintained. It provides preparation to get into the right mindset of self-determination, instead of entering treatment strung out or detoxing, hoping some program will do the work of recovery for them. The longer a person can stay sober, the more successful treatment will be.

Work therapy is an important part of the process. For the able-bodied, chores are assigned. For those with handicaps, there are light duties or waivers. Work is an essential part of life and rehabilitation. It occupies the mind and provides purpose. Work takes the focus off the self, stimulates exercise, produces conversation, and strengthens character. Chapel services put the focus on our Almighty Creator and Savior as our help in time of need. God’s Word is fundamental to understanding our existence, design, hope. Ultimately, this life is preparing for eternity.

Social service achievements are planned and followed up. People wait for birth certificates and picture identification. There are waiting periods for medical treatment and recuperation. There are delays for adult foster care, mental health treatment, subsidized housing. Finding employment is not as difficult as it used to be, but saving money to enter the rental market can take time. Some are here developing a rental history in our Transitional Housing Program. Others are restoring relationships, waiting on Social Security for age or disability, or completing parole or probation. Mothers wait for custody of their children.

We have limitations of stay, except in our rental housing, because the Mission is not an alternative lifestyle. Yet, there are legitimate reasons for extensions. For most, there has to be a launch date, unless the system just fails some individuals. And it does. When there is no place to go, and a person is not self-sufficient, we do not just put them out. Again, there is a workable balance of justice and compassion.

Andrea is one of the first to be in our Transitional Housing Program for women, and the very first to move out into permanent housing. She stayed in our dormitory for a couple of months, then rented a place in one of our houses for eight months.

She had struggled with drugs, lost her children, then tent camped with her boyfriend. When he was arrested, she was afraid to camp alone, so she went to our Samaritan Inn. Andrea said, “I needed to hit rock bottom to get responsible, to work on getting my kids back. I needed the accountability of Samaritan Inn.” And she was held to not use drugs, do cleanup chores here, and take court ordered classes at off-site locations. As a Christian, she appreciated our chapel services, especially the volunteer provided music. A social service achievement was to get her lost Social Security card reissued, so she could be employed. Within a month of being here, she landed a job, that she still has.

While living here, her savings, rental history, and credit score improved. Andrea was approved for a non-subsidized, permanent housing apartment, paid the rent and deposit, and has launched to independence. The unit that she was renting at Samaritan Inn will soon be occupied by one of several women on our waiting list. Andrea and many other women need this place, so they can be preparing for the future.