Harvest House
Revitalizing Neighborhoods. Transforming Lives.
By Kim Niemann
”The love and integrity Harvest House exemplifies throughout our community has made giving and working with them such a rewarding experience.”
– Lee Wetherington, Legacy Giving Society Member
In 1992 Pastors Jim and Peggy Minor founded Harvest House with just 6 beds for men in recovery from substance abuse. Today, Harvest House has 9 supportive housing campuses and 30 affordable rentals encompassing 400+ beds and serves more than 900 individuals annually.
Harvest House is one of the few nonprofit organizations in Sarasota working towards the development, preservation, and management of affordable, service-enriched housing. They serve homeless families, veterans, youth ages 16 to 24, and adults with a history of incarceration and substance abuse. Their model is becoming the standard for serving members of our community who are working to rebuild their lives. Harvest House believes that affordable and supportive housing programs improve economic status, revitalize neighborhoods, and stabilize lives.
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Harvest House programs are not a handout. Instead, they offer a hand-up to those willing to engage and work towards independence. A founding belief is that personal responsibility is a key component of success for the families, youth, veterans, and individuals they serve.
Harvest House Manages Four Distinct Programs:
1) Family Services
Providing Emergency Shelter, Transitional Housing, and Permanent Supportive Housing for families experiencing homelessness by moving them into stable housing as soon as possible.
2) Youth Services
For young adults ages 16 to 24, coming from a history of insufficient support systems, various types of abuse, episodes in and out of the foster care system, parents with addiction, and homelessness who aspire to go higher.
3) Veteran Services
Veterans Empowered through Transitional Services (VETS). The VETS program assists male veterans who have struggled with returning to civilian life after their service via transitional housing set in a therapeutic community, recovery and life enrichment classes, case management, and homebound services.
4) Addiction Services
Providing Residential Addiction Recovery for Men & Women.
“Addiction is dear to my heart and something I want to focus on in this article,” Kim Niemann, Harvest House Client.
Hope is the foundation of recovery.
“We see names behind the numbers, courage despite circumstances, stories behind scars, and dreams despite doubt.” Erin Minor, Executive Director
Participants in Addiction Services enter “Freedom”. Freedom is a highly progressive, structured program that focuses primarily on skill mastery and concentrates on “Transformation over Reformation”.
Harvest House’s goal is that program participants, clients as they call them, master personal health and wholeness skills to thrive and be contributors to their families and communities. For a truly holistic approach to health and wholeness, they recognize that transformation over reformation leads to successful, lasting recovery solutions. Freedom focuses on addressing the entire existence of the whole person: body, mind, and spirit.
“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.” Johann Hari, Best Selling Author
Barriers to effective addiction recovery typically include cost, lack of insurance, social stigma, convenience, and the lack of a comprehensive treatment. Harvest House has created an innovative model to address all of these barriers, believing in personal responsibility, so clients pay a minimal program fee that includes rent, utilities, and all services. The standard program plan covers nine months of residential recovery and one month of aftercare, however, all recovery plans are uniquely structured per the needs of the individual. The model is a hybrid between a halfway house and an inpatient center. Included with the program clients are set up in a dorm-style living accommodations with a shared common area, bathroom, and kitchen space.
Freedom integrates Physical Health, Nutrition, Exercise, Sexual Health, Mental & Emotional Health, Anger Management, and Emotional Intelligence Therapy. Clients are required to stay engaged full-time as Harvest House believes that personal responsibility is key and purpose is found in completing meaningful activities from active employment to caretaking responsibilities to creative endeavors.
Harvest House assists with job-placement through active case-management and their employee leasing program, Orange Works. Social connection is the key to living a happier, longer life and through enrichment classes 6 nights a week and shared living spaces, the men and women in recovery truly have an opportunity to bond and connect in ways that help establish the ability to maintain healthy relationships for a lifetime.
Harvest House wants to connect with you! Have you seen what they do first-hand? Reach out, join up and hop on a facility tour. You’ll be changed forever!
Click HERE [2] to download the article.
Click HERE [3] to Download the 2019 Harvest House View Book.
HARVEST HOUSE STATISTICS ◊ Fiscal Year 2017
833 ◊ Men, women, and children served with supportive housing.
382 ◊ Individuals served with Residential Addiction Recovery Services.
267 ◊ Children were not homeless.
Harvest House
23650 17th Street, Sarasota, FL 34235
(941) 953-3154
info@harvesthousecenters.com [4]
www.harvesthousecenters.org [5]
Copyright © 2019 REAL Exclusive Magazine www.getrealexclusive.com [6]
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