Paid Work Agreements: Social Enterprise within Recovery Housing

Many recovery homes see the value in assisting residents with employment as a recovery goal. Connecting residents to employment and job training improves recovery related outcomes.  Therefore, a recovery housing program can start employment programs that teach job skills to a resident.

But an organization must be sure that they are keeping some separation between an employment program and the housing program.

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For an example – a recovery home starts a social enterprise where a resident living in the recovery home learn a job skill, such as catering.  A resident moves into the home and starts working at a catering company that works as a social enterprise.

After a couple of weeks, the resident realizes how much they dislike working in food service, so, the resident quits the job training program and gets a job at a retail store as a cashier.

Now, the resident has a job, is still paying their rent, and is otherwise engaged in all of the recovery oriented programming in house.

This resident should not automatically lose their housing because food service and catering turned out not to be their career path.  Even if they are not participating in the social enterprise that is associated with the recovery home, they are still meeting their recovery goals and should be able to continue to live in the recovery home.

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Similarly, if something happens in an employment situation where a resident loses their job, they should not automatically lose their housing as well.