KSAT Community Giving Tuesday: Pay it Forward, Clean and Sober Living

Help support nonprofits during COVID-19

Giving Tuesday

SAN ANTONIO – Our local nonprofits in San Antonio need help from the community now more than ever due to COVID-19 affecting its daily operations.

With an overwhelming response from the community, 36 nonprofit organizations reached out to KSAT Community to be potentially featured for Wishlist Wednesday.

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Instead of highlighting one nonprofit for Wishlist Wednesday this week, KSAT Community will be hosting Giving Tuesday to help 36 organizations.

If you would like to learn more about how Pay it Forward, Clean and Sober Living needs support during the pandemic, please see below on the Q&A from the nonprofit.

Q. What is the mission/goal of the nonprofit?

A. Our mission is to provide the critical link between treatment and long-term recovery through supportive sober living, allowing individuals to heal from the destruction of addiction and create meaningful lives. Our goal is to reduce domestic violence, child abuse & neglect, poverty, homelessness, hunger, lack of healthcare, unemployment, criminal activity and chemically impaired driving caused by substance use disorder through access to supportive sober living. Especially during this crisis when we are all needing to stay home for the protection of not only ourselves, our families and the community at large, ensuring that those we serve have a safe place to call home is vital to the health of everyone.

Q. How does the nonprofit help the community?

A. Our organization is one of the partners on the campus of Haven for Hope. We provide 61 sober living beds for men and women on campus for those whose primary cause of homelessness is substance use disorder. Our residents can live with us for up to a year. Through providing access to supportive sober living for indigent individuals in early recovery, our programs provide our residents a place to live while they break the cycle of poverty and crime, thereby virtually eliminating taxpayer burden associated with the high cost of addiction-related healthcare and incarceration. We also partner with 70 community based sober living homes where we provide the first two weeks of funds for qualified individuals allowing them the opportunity to move into a safe and sober environment and allow them the time to find gainful employment and start carrying their own weight. In 2019, we provided the funding for 246 individuals, giving them the opportunity to move into a home they otherwise would have not been able to afford on their own. This is a win-win for those we serve, their families, and the community at large saving the taxpayers thousands of dollars annually.

Q. How has COVID-19 impacted your nonprofit?

A. Many of our on-campus residents have already lost their jobs and we are suspending program fees for anyone that is unable to pay. Through our program that provides the initial move-in fees to move into one of our community partner sober living homes, we receive approximately 50 applications per month for assistance, and in normal circumstances fund, on average 20 to 25 clients each month. The majority of PIF clients are employed in entry-level service industry jobs. Due to the sudden loss of many jobs related to restaurants and other small business suspending or ceasing operation, many residents are unable to work, therefore unable to pay move-in fees into sober living or program fees, much less the normal everyday fees to keep up with their own living expenses, nor carry their own weight in supporting the homes in which they reside. We will need to fund approximately twice as many clients through the Bridge program as well as aid the homes as a whole to ensure their solvency. If the homes cannot stay operational, it does not matter if we fund an individual into that home. Our impact will be shifting from helping one individual at a time, to helping all of the residents who reside in the homes.

Q. What type of donations do you need?

A. Monetary.

Q. Do you need volunteers?

A. Not at this time.

Q. How can the community help?

A. By helping us to remove the stigma and barriers to those who are working so hard to repair their lives and becoming productive members of society, and supporting us in providing the access to allow them to live in a safe and supportive place to call home while they do so.

Website:

payitforwardsa.org

Facebook page:

facebook.com/PayItForwardCSL

Address:

1 Haven for Hope Way, Suite, 3703 San Antonio, Texas 78207

Related:

Share your appreciation for our community: Send a frontline worker a virtual message

To see the full list of KSAT Community Giving Tuesday nonprofits featured, click here.

KSAT Community operates in partnership with University Health System, Energy Transfer and Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union.


About the Author:

Kiersten has been a Digital Content Creator with KSAT12 since 2017. She graduated from Texas State University with an electronic media degree and previously worked for the Spurs Sports & Entertainment.