We at the South Central Behavioral Health Network (SCBHN) use our Neighbor to Neighbor funds to help people living in New Haven’s emergency shelters to find their way to a new life away from drugs and crises. We use your money to move people out of the shelters and into sober houses, where they can go to meetings, seek work and support each other 
I just had a long conversation with one of those men and I thought you would be interested in knowing what he told me.  Lewis is 50 years old.  He started using crack cocaine when he was 15. He never really went to school.  As you can imagine, he has spent a lot of time in prison.  As he was about to be released again, he decided that he would do whatever it took not to come back to jail. 
Shortly after leaving prison, he met one of our case managers, who arranged for him to be admitted to the Grant St. Partnership, the inpatient substance abuse treatment program of the Hill Health Center.   He finished the program and we paid part of his rent at a sober house with N2N funds, while he scrambled to find temporary work to pay the rest.  He has now been sober for one year.  “I don’t drink, take drugs or smoke cigarettes.  I am not doing anything that will bring me back to that.”  He goes to Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings several times a week.  “I’ll do whatever it takes.” 
Is everything fine for Lewis? No.  He can’t find a steady job because of his prison record.  He goes to a temporary labor office every morning at 5a.m.  and waits to see if he gets hired. They know that he works hard, so he often is successful in getting a day or a week of work, but then he is back to the temp office. A church organization found him a room that he rents cheap, but it’s tiny and old.  He eats at the soup kitchens, but would like to eat a healthier diet. Every day is a struggle for Lewis, but he sounds like a happy man, doing what he needs to.   
I wish we could do more for Lewis.  He needs to learn a skill.  I doubt he has had a serious medical exam for many years.  Maybe one of you has a job for him