“I’m homeless.”
“I need a place to stay.”
“I have nowhere to go.”
Every day the staff at Garden Street receive calls from homeless men. Every day we hear comments like this. So who can we help?
The Garden Street Transitional Home is open to any homeless man 18 or older. “Homeless” means either living on the streets or coming from an emergency shelter like the Drop Inn Center.

Our home is small. We can house up to seven men at one time. The benefit of this is that staff and residents have a good deal of interaction (four staff members for seven residents). The drawback is that we cannot help as many people as we’d like.

Our home was set up to help men with a history of incarceration. Most of our residents have recently been behind bars. Many of them are dealing with alcohol or drug addiction. Others have mental health problems.

We help our residents work through these issues and move on to independent living. Residents are required to go to four AA or NA meetings per week. A case plan is developed for each resident, so that they can get the services they need and progress towards their goals.

In most cases, men are referred to our program by the Adult Parole Authority or by outreach workers from other social service agencies. New residents must agree to abide by the rules of the program and pass a drug test before being admitted.

The rules are pretty simple. No drugs or alcohol. No violence or threats. Residents need to make their meetings, do their chores, be in by curfew,find work (if they’re able) and save their money.

Residents can stay for up to two years. Three or four months is more typical; six is optimal. We want residents to get to a point where they have a stable, full-time, permanent job and have enough money saved up to comfortably afford their own place.