Fresh Start offers a safe, structured, alcohol and drug-free environment for women invested in attaining self-sufficiency. Services are offered to women ages 19 years and older. They can be homeless for any reason. Fresh Start is here to provide the home, hope and security these women need to recover and re-establish themselves into the community. The four most common causes of homelessness, as reported by the women we serve, are:

• Substance abuse
• Domestic violence
• Mental health
• Economics

Many of the women experience more than one of these issues.

Fresh Start provides for basic needs such as food, clothing and housing while offering case management and supportive services. Women create an Individualized Goal Plan (IGP) that identifies the goals they have and the steps to become independent. The plan acts as a road map to self-sufficiency and is designed to use the woman’s strengths to overcome the barriers she identifies as contributing to her homelessness. 

Case managers provide the supportive services necessary to implement and support this plan. Through the attainment of employment, acquisition of life skills, maintenance of sobriety, and exploration of personal strengths women move along their path to a new home of their own, one where they are healthier, stronger and more independent.

In addition to working with a case manager on their IGP, residents attend educational workshops at the house and have household responsibilities as a part of the program. Additional programming may include:

• supervised child visits
• attending Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous
• participating in domestic violence support groups
• individual counseling
• alcohol or other drug treatment/relapse prevention
• complying with the justice system
• seeking and maintaining employment
• medication monitoring
• attaining medical care

Team members work with women to ensure services are available and appropriate, and provide information and referral services. Fresh Start strives to not duplicate services; instead we work with the women to connect them to existing services in the community. This both avoids duplication and strengthens the long term support network the women have outside of Fresh Start.