The Phoenix House Of Tuscaloosa Nets $50K For Ready-To-Work Program

TUSCALOOSA, AL — The Tuscaloosa County Commission on Wednesday unanimously approved a grant allocation of $50,000 for The Phoenix House of Tuscaloosa to develop a skills-based pathway to train incumbent workers, dislocated workers and other special populations who have been affected by alcohol and substance abuse.

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Founded in the late 1960s and operating as its current incarnation since 1972, The Phoenix House is a freestanding residential treatment facility that has served over 10,000 clients during its history. As Phoenix House Board President Bob Weatherly pointed out on Wednesday, the organization's clients typically come from the court system, jails and the homeless population.

Apart from local governmental funding sources, The Phoenix House also receives support from The United Way of West Alabama, the Alabama Department of Mental Health, First United Methodist Church of Tuscaloosa, First Presbyterian Church of Tuscaloosa and other private donors.

"We get them and keep them for 90 days and we are trying to keep them sober, which is our primary purpose," he said. "But the reason we’re here is we want to give our clients skills that, after 90 days when we release them out into the community, they have the skills to have a good job and we’ve had some good results with the program so far."

As part of his funding pitch, Weatherly provided the following statistics ...

• 73% of clients, upon admission, are living below poverty line.
• 80% of clients are currently involved in the criminal justice.
• 90% of female clients are victims of sexual abuse or domestic violence.
• 83% of Phoenix House clients are unemployed.

"As of yesterday, we had 37 clients living at The Phoenix House, men and woman, and we feed them breakfast and dinner every day of the week and we also pack them a sack lunch to take to work," Weatherly said. "We buy 90% of our food from the West Alabama Food Bank. It's a true blessing for The Phoenix House. Those folks are really a vital client for us at The Phoenix House because we’re feeding a lot of folks a lot of meals."

ALSO READ: County Commission Approves $150K For West Alabama Food Bank

While the needs are understandably numerous for the nonprofit, The Phoenix House has partnered with the state of Alabama's Career Center and West AlabamaWorks to provide ready-to-work training as part of the nonprofit's treatment plan.

Weatherly then explained that The Phoenix House ran eight sessions itself, which the nonprofit paid for. In total, 85 clients participated, while 22 were discharged due to relapses or behavioral issues. What's more, he said 63 clients have completed the ready-to-work life skills program.

The program, he said, lasts five weeks out of the 12 weeks that clients live at The Phoenix House.

To date, 80% of participants in the ready-to-work program have graduated from The Phoenix House.

"I'm a real believer in this program," Weatherly said. "We’re seeing great results and also, once a client graduates and moves off from Phoenix House, [West AlabamaWorks Executive Director] Donny Jones [and his team] have people that stay in touch."

Weatherly also said the nonprofit requested a $50,000 grant allocation from the City of Tuscaloosa last week, before expressing his optimism that the city will grant the request.

The Tuscaloosa County Commission unanimously approved the request for $50,000, which will come from the county's allotment of funding from the American Rescue Plan Act.

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