The first weeks
are where men fall.
He walks out of treatment or out of the county jail with real sober time and an empty wallet. The bed costs money today. The job starts Monday and the first check clears the Friday after that. We pay that gap, straight to the house, so nobody loses a bed waiting on a paycheck he has already earned.
One job, done well.
Redemption Ridge Foundation pays program fees at recovery residences for men who cannot pay them yet. That is the whole job. We do not own a house. We do not run a house. We do not take a cut of anybody's rent. We hold a small fund, we keep a written standard for who gets helped and where, and we pay the house directly against its posted rate.
The people we are built for have the least room to wait: out of inpatient, out of jail, out of the Department of Correction, sober and serious and three weeks short of a paycheck. That stretch is short, it is cheap to cover, and it is where most of the falling happens.
Money to the house.
Never into a pocket.
Three steps, and the third one is the whole point.
Somebody asks
He can ask for himself, or a case manager, a probation officer, a pastor, or his mother can ask for him. It takes a few minutes and we answer fast, because the people who need this are usually asking with a release date already on the calendar.
We pay the residence
If the house holds the standard and the need is real, we pay the fee straight to the house against its posted rate and its invoice. No cash ever passes through a resident's hands, and the house knows from day one who is covered and for how long.
He takes it over
The first two weeks are covered in full. In week three he pays about fifty dollars of his own. From week four he pays his own way like everybody else under that roof, and he leaves knowing he did it.
Same answer, every time.
The rules are written down before anybody asks, so nobody has to wonder whether the answer he got was the fair one.
- Need comes first, and one policy is applied to everybody
- The house posts its rates and its rules
- We pay the house on its invoice, never cash to a resident
- Help is a set stretch with a hand-off date, not an open account
- We say plainly who the fund carried, and for how long
Where men stay.
We are starting in Shelby County. The first residence we sponsor into is that house on South Pike Street, operated by TD Transitional Services. As the fund grows, so does the list of houses we pay into.
We do not own housing and we do not run it, and that keeps this simple. The bed is theirs to offer. The fee is ours to cover.
Need a bed?
Beds belong to the houses. Apply to the house directly, and tell them you are asking Redemption Ridge to help with the fee. If you do not know where to start, ask us and we will point you.
Run a recovery residence?
If you keep beds in Shelby County, we want to know you. There is room on this ridge for more than one good house, and every guy who makes it is one more argument that recovery works. Tell us where you are and what you charge, and let us see what we can carry together.
Case managers, probation officers, and re-entry coordinators
If you have somebody with a release date and no first month, that is the exact hole this fund exists to fill. One email tells you whether we can cover him and for how long, usually the same day: tim@redemption-ridge.org
About $400 covers the whole gap.
Two weeks paid, a partial third, and then he is standing on his own money. That is the entire distance between the door and the first full check, and it is the cheapest thing anybody will ask you to buy this year.
Sponsor a Bed