Chelsea Street Foundation - A Non Profit, Therapeutic, Sober Living Residential Community

INTRODUCTION

 Established in Utah in 1994, Chelsea Street Foundation is a residential therapeutic community providing self-sufficiency and life skills guidance with a minimum one-year commitment. Chelsea Street is not an inpatient or outpatient drug treatment program. We provide assistance to those with a history of addiction, incarceration or homelessness through a structured, supported community environment.

Most of the people we serve have completed one or more drug and alcohol treatment programs. They have learned the tools to stay sober but do not have a sober environment to return to once the treatment is completed. Our place in this system is to successfully transition these individuals into society through the utilization of long-term residential transition assistance. In most instances, it has taken many years of behaviors such as drug addiction, crime and incarceration, homelessness, to bring a persons life to this low point. We believe it could take a like number of years to build or rebuild a socially accepted and personally successful life.

This program is self-pay, with each resident being required to work a minimum of forty hours per week. The cost of Chelsea Street is $700.00 per month, which includes housing, food, utilities, supervision, drug testing, and programming. In addition, we will incorporate any Court, Probation or Parole agreement into the requirements to complete Chelsea Street , thereby assisting our residents to fulfill any Court ordered requirements as well. This is accomplished by utilizing community resources through a referral process.

We believe progress and lasting change will occur with each resident taking personal responsibility, helping one another and sharing responsibilities. We believe change occurs when people have a sense of ownership, accomplishment and accountability.

The cost of $700.00 per month is based on the fact that a person living alone cannot have decent housing, utilities paid, adequate food and other personal needs for less than this amount. We try to teach our residents that if they work a minimum of forty hours per week, budget their money and stay sober, they will learn how to meet their monthly obligation without the need for state or other community assistance. It is our goal that when a resident leaves Chelsea Street they have the personal resources to pay their rent in advance, pay deposits on utilities, purchase groceries and other necessities, have adequate transportation to and from their employment, and personal and automobile insurance.

It is the experience of Chelsea Street that individuals utilize the community resources, often very skillfully and with great tenacity; but once those resources are exhausted they find themselves in the identical situation of homelessness. This we believe is due to lack of motivation and adequate skills required to address the issues that have surfaced as a result of a long history of dysfunction due to addiction or incarceration. It is the goal of Chelsea Street to teach an individual that community resources should be utilized only as a short-term supplement or a “kick start” to help begin the road to recovery.

It is also our goal that every resident who enters the Chelsea Street leave the Foundation with a solid work history, repaired credit information and a support system that would enable them, some for the first time, to function in the society. We try to ensure each resident have at least three marketable job skills when they leave the program to ensure employment whatever the current trends.

Many of our residents have learned to use the system, to utilize programs supported by our tax dollars and merely move back and forth between these community-supported resources rather than learn to take care of themselves in a more productive manner via employment. It takes a great deal of skill to use the system in this way. We would like to see people utilize that talent in a manner that does not drain society's resources.

Chelsea Street residents work on a levels system. It is up to each individual to take personal responsibility in getting through these levels. This is not a lock down facility and we do not have guards on site to serve as enforcers. Privilege and personal freedom are a natural consequence of following the guidelines described in the levels contract. Restriction and frustration are a natural consequence of disregard of these guidelines. It is our goal to assist each resident in completing all requirements necessary to be released from parole or probation supervision.

Chelsea Street strives to build individual and community pride, self-worth and self-esteem through a supportive structured environment. Ethical values and hard work are stressed. We believe change occurs when people have a sense of ownership, accomplishment and accountability. One of our goals is that our residents get off and stay off state, federal, and county assistance, thereby lowering this financial responsibility society is forced to take on.

EMPLOYMENT OF RESIDENTS  

We have found that the primary issue for our residents is not sobriety, but the inability of our residents to find an keep adequate employment. In fact, the residents who become gainfully employed and remain so for thirty days or more have fewer issues with sobriety in comparison with our residents who are unemployed.

There are many reasons our residents have difficulty with employment, such as lack of skills and training; lack of employment opportunities; lack of desire to work; low self-esteem and guilt issues. All of this makes it difficult for our residents to apply for qualified positions. Many of our residents come to us without ever having been gainfully (legally) employed. We work with a very difficult clientele and many employers do not wish to hire a person with a history of incarceration or drug addiction.

In order to assist our residents in these areas we have coordinated our effort into helping some of our successful residents start and run their own businesses, utilizing Chelsea Street residents as their workforce. Employment available to our residents through these businesses includes landscaping and lawn care; house and window cleaning; tree trimming; and general handyman and maintenance service. As these businesses grow more residents will be employed and supporting themselves within the first few days of arrival. In addition to and perhaps more important, our residents will not only be able to learn new employment skills but they will also be employed and working for sober people in a sober environment.

The Chelsea Street Foundation is a non-profit corporation with a 501 (c)(3) status. Chelsea Street does not receive state, federal or county funding. All of our resources come from our residents as they go into the workforce and from donations provided by our generous and supportive community.