Shaween Sullivan invested much of the previous twenty years homeless, off and on, even while working as a truck chauffeur. Captive to alcohol, he stumbled through numerous marital relationships and backslid out of addiction treatments.
However at age 57, he feels he’s lastly pin down sobriety. He invested the previous 18 months at the Salvation Army’s Harbor Light Center residential rehab center in San Francisco and in December finished a peer therapy course. His hunt for a task assisting homeless people has actually started.
With a bit more help, Sullivan stated, he will be geared up to make that sobriety long-term– not fall back to the bottle like he did previously.
” I have actually been enthusiastically offered a great deal of things, and I ‘d like to do the exact same and return,” Sullivan stated. “I simply require a bit more help, like some transitional real estate while I make my method to complete self-reliance.”
That’s simply what the Salvation Army has in mind for the coming year: a ladder-like program that takes homeless people having a hard time with addiction from the street to completely housed self-reliance in one smooth flight.
The concept is to keep supporting Harbor Light Center individuals like Sullivan for 2 to 3 years so the rehab, task training and therapy can really stick. No changing to other programs or discharge after getting tidy for a couple of months– that’s when addicts frequently relapse.
The brand-new plan will cover the $700 regular monthly charge individuals generally have to pay for being in the residential program, so when the customers leave they will have whatever earnings they might have conserved to use for their post-rehab life. That implies things like rental deposit or transport to a brand-new task.
Secret to all of this is having enough transitional real estate readily available for individuals as the program broadens, stated Theo Ellington, director of homeless efforts for the Salvation Army in San Francisco. With that in mind, the not-for-profit is preparing to develop hundreds of budget-friendly and transitional real estate systems over the next ten years on some of its 6 big residential or commercial properties in the city.
” We desire to prevent that ‘cleaning maker effect,’ where folks enter into a 3- to six-month treatment program, are off-boarded without an assistance system and then fall back into addiction,” Ellington stated. “We truly desire to have our arms twisted around people, to develop a real estate ladder for them.”
He stated a 2012 Salvation Army national research study revealed that homeless addicts who stayed in treatment with continuous assistance for 2 to 3 years had a 90% possibility of not backsliding when they leave rehab. That compares with the normal national relapse rate, which is as high as 60%, according to the National Institute on Substance Abuse.
The pilot is part of the Salvation Army’s five-year “The Escape” effort, started in 2015, in which the company plans to drastically increase its homelessness services in the western United States. The Salvation Army has actually run in San Francisco because 1883, and is the biggest not-for-profit landowner in the city.
It has actually raised about $1 million of the $4.5 million it hopes to collect over the next year for regional Escape objectives, Ellington stated.
The Harbor Light pilot program will begin little early next year with about a lots individuals. Ultimately, the hope is to broaden it to the center’s whole 136-person customer load. The cost of the pilot is about $1 million.
” We do not desire them to seem like they’re on their own when they leave here,” stated Maj. David Pierce, Harbor Light executive director. “Due to the fact that when people feel separated, that’s a bad chance to return to drugs or alcohol.
” This is establishing their sense of how to live sober and get them on a course towards a profession and an ability set, so they can head out and effectively live on their own.”
Harbor Light currently lets some people stay at its residential facility for up to 3 years through extensions as they go along. However that ought to be drastically improved by the pilot program’s growth of task training, therapy and transitional real estate, plus developing the cost savings plan for customers and steering people more strongly to long-term real estate, Ellington stated.
This might likewise considerably swell the customer capability. And when an individual signs up for the pilot program, he or she will immediately be registered for 2 to 3 years without a requirement for extensions.
” We desire a completely direct course for getting people off the street, through rehab and into long-term real estate,” Ellington stated.
Sullivan is currently on track to stay at Harbor Light’s residential program a while longer as he figure out his next actions, however he’s hoping to be part of the pilot program when individuals get chosen next year. He’s discovered his own type of spirituality– not a requirement of the program– gotten sober and chose on a therapy profession, however he’ll more than happy for whatever additional help he can get, he stated.
” The future benefits those who press on,” he stated. “I do not have time to regret for myself. I do not have time to grumble. I’m going to press on.”
Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff author. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron