CL House
Life on the streets cultivates addiction. To facilitate recovery for the unhoused, we opened the CL House to be a place where sober residents are welcomed in as partners who support one another and share the work of maintaining a peaceful, supportive home. Residents are responsible for the regular tasks of cleaning and cooking. House monitors provide daily accompaniment and our psychologist offers weekly sessions to all residents. We hold a weekly in-house support group and provide transport to an optional Sunday morning church service. The love invested here makes our house a home.
CL Residents are received as partners, starting with a fifteen day volunteering/ professionalism training program on our farm. We then equip residents for their job hunt and accompany them into employment. Once employment is secured, we teach financial responsibility with an obligatory savings program to build independence; residents “pay rent” to themselves by saving an accumulative third of their income monthly.
CL Farm
As an initial step in partnership with residents, we run a small farm where each incoming resident spends their first fifteen days volunteering alongside us. This process serves as a triage for prospective residents – allowing us to ensure that we are receiving individuals into the home who are willing to engage in a sober, working lifestyle. The farm also facilitates a slowing down and calming process. We are able to build a personal relationship with each resident and have conversations based on observed tendencies. This initial fifteen day period provides the CL team with a relational foundation that we continue to develop throughout the duration of the residents time with us.
Caféla
This location was the site of CL’s first garden. One day while Mark worked alongside Wyane, a CL resident who had previously worked in restaurants, Wayne lamented that he could no longer see himself working in restaurants because of how restaurant culture triggered his addictions. Mark responded, well what if we create one that is different? Wayne took interest, and so we did.
“Caféla” is a mashup of three words – Coffee (café), Faith (fé), and Chapel (cappella). It is designed to be a place of good food that facilitates meaningful encounters and deep conversations. This has allowed us to offer meaningful employment to some of our house residents, and with that deeply increased our relationships and influence even long after these residents move on from CL housing.
Learning Center
Maintaining sobriety and independence requires a number of competencies, or life-skills, that are often underdeveloped in the lives of our residents. At the Learning Center we teach classes that focus on these life-skills and provide concrete ways to understand them in practice. Classes include conflict management, goal setting, financial organization, etc. The organization and implementation of these classes continues as a work in progress.
Sunday Breakfast
Caféla opens Sunday mornings to offer breakfast to anyone on the street who would like a meal. This is often our moment of “first contact” with future CL residents. We enjoy sitting down for coffee with those who come and also take it as an opportunity to invite our guests to consider CL’s services and to share a message of hope from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even for those who are not ready for “next steps”, this is a moment of mutual respect and peace. It is a highlight of my week.
