The social science model focuses on providing the types of programs to meet the needs of those specific individuals with their problems. But, again, if you do so in a dehumanizing way, which neglects the spiritual part of our being, which is always the most fundamental, then recovery is not within sight. So, in as much as we're able to combine the best from those modalities, we're able to do something very special. I have been homeless the last decade of my life and have been in and out of dozens of different homeless shelters. The only way I'm going to change is if you can help me believe that change is possible and begin to want to make those changes in my life and that's what's starting to happen to me here at the Center.
Community is always fundamental.
The love is the most important thing that we do. The toughness is critical but it's peripheral to what is core. And we do drug testing and alcohol testing and mandatory savings and so on and so forth as people move on. Eighty percent of the funds that run the Center come from the private sector. And while we could easily access more, we have philosophically said that we do not want more than a 20 percent match from the public sector.