journey home west hartford ct

Help Us End Homelessness in the Capital Region of Connecticut

There are several ways you can support journey home., donate money.

Your monetary gift will go directly to helping us fulfill our mission to ensure a home for all.

Volunteer Your Time

Your time can be a valuable asset to Journey Home. We’ll match your talents with one of our initiatives.

Donate Needed Items

Help our clients transition from homelessness to housing by giving household items and furniture.

Sending a check donation? Checks can be made out and mailed to: Journey Home, PO Box 260727, Hartford, CT 06126.

Your donation will have a meaningful impact on our community.

Your Donation Goes a Long Way to Helping Us Fulfill Our Mission

Journey Home’s mission is to ensure a home for all. We believe the most powerful way to do this is TOGETHER.

Your charitable gift will enable us to continue our work:

• Preventing as many people as possible from losing their housing
• Increasing the speed at which we find housing for anyone who is already experiencing homelessness
• Helping folks move into their homes and provide the furnishings and services they need to never become homeless again

Host an Event to Support Journey Home

Journey home mission: our mission is to ensure a home for all..

We believe the most powerful way to do this is collectively - by working together with service providers, elected officials, businesses and local communities to end homelessness in the Capital region of Connecticut. We will build partnerships, advance innovative solutions and achieve enduring, systemic change.

Journey Home

PO Box 260727 Hartford, CT 06126

860-808-0336

[email protected]

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Journey Home Holding ‘Prom’ at West Hartford Town Hall

Journey Home’s ’80s Prom will be held on Friday, April 19, 2024 at West Hartford Town Hall.

Journey Home is holding an 80s Prom. Courtesy of Journey Home

By Ronni Newton

Each year, the nonprofit Journey Home hosts a themed fundraiser to support the organization’s work to end homelessness in the Greater Hartford area, and this year’s will feature “bodacious” food and drink, “gnarly” entertainment, and a “rad” silent auction – guaranteeing a “totally tubular time” for all who attend.

It’s a chance for those of a certain age to relive their high school days – or maybe get a chance at a do-over – while also supporting the important mission of Journey Home. Blue eyeshadow and big hair, along with other 80s styles, are welcome and encouraged.

“You’ll be able to take prom pics, spike the punch, crown a court, and dance to some truly amazing music.All of this fun AND you are also supporting our amazing work here at Journey Home. What could be more totally tubular? We can’t think of anything so click here to get your tickets now … tickets are flying faster than the latest neon leg warmers of 1988!” states an announcement of the event. Sponsorships are available as well.

The 80s Prom will be held in the auditorium of West Hartford Town Hall on Friday, April 19, from 7 to 10 p.m.

The playlist will include Madonna, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, George Michael, David Bowie, Run DMC, Blondie, and Bon Jovi.

Journey Home will not only be fundraising, but will also be celebrating the organization’s recognition and receipt of a $2 million gift as an awardee of the Yield Giving Open Call that was announced this month.

Yield Giving launched an Open Call last year for “community-led, community-focused organizations whose explicit purpose is to enable individuals and families to achieve substantive improvement in their well-being through foundational resources.” There were 6,353 applications from all 5o states as well as Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, and Yield Giving originally intended to give 250 awards of $1 million each. “In the fall of 2023, organizations top-rated by their peers advanced to a second round of review by an external Evaluation Panel recruited for experience relevant to this cause, and underwent a final round of due diligence. In light of the incredible work of these organizations, as judged by their peers and external panelists, the donor team decided to expand the awardee pool and the award amount,” the announcement states.

Journey Home Executive Director Matt Morgan said in a statement, “They’re not asking us to do anything different. They’re saying you’re doing a really good job. Keep going, we trust you. That means so much to us. It gives us the opportunity to do what we do best – be creative, test ideas, and innovate.  We are so grateful for the support of Yield Giving and the work that they are not only making possible here in our community but in communities all over our nation.  It’s remarkable.”

Sara Salomons Wilson, Journey Home’s director of Development and Operations, said the $2 million is a no-strings-attached gift without restrictions, “which is simply amazing.”

She said that Journey Home has many ideas for use of the funds, and is working with a strategic planner to identify how it can make the biggest impact.

“A few of the ideas we are considering include advancing homelessness prevention activities, accelerating our work to house individuals sleeping in encampments with the services they need, and expanding Journey Home ’s furniture bank program to be able to serve more people at a faster pace in a wider geographic region,” she said.  “Whatever we pursue, we look forward to having the opportunity to do some amazing work that we never would have thought possible without this gift.”

In a statement, Cecilia Conrad, CEO of Lever for Change, said, “We are excited that our partnership with Yield Giving has resonated with so many organizations. In a world teeming with potential and talent, the Open Call has given us an opportunity to identify, uplift, and empower transformative organizations that often remain unseen.”

About Yield Giving

Established by MacKenzie Scott to share a financial fortune created through the effort of countless people, Yield Giving is named after a belief in adding value by giving up control. To date, Yield’s network of staff and advisors has yielded over $16,500,000,000 to 1,900+ non-profit teams to use as they see fit for the benefit of others. To learn more, visit www.yieldgiving.com .

About Lever for Change

Lever for Change connects donors with bold solutions to the world’s biggest problems—including issues like racial inequity, gender inequality, lack of access to economic opportunity, and climate change. Using an inclusive, equitable model and due diligence process, Lever for Change creates customized challenges and other tailored funding opportunities. Top-ranked teams and challenge finalists become members of the Bold Solutions Network – a growing global network that helps secure additional funding, amplify members’ impact, and accelerate social change. Founded in 2019 as a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Lever for Change has influenced over $1.7 billion in grants to date and provided support to more than 145 organizations. To learn more, visit www.leverforchange.org .

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New & Noteworthy

• COVID-19 Response
• Grantee Stories

COVID-19 Response Fund Grantee Stories: Journey Home Helps to Prevent Spread of Virus Among Homeless Residents

Journey Home’s mission is clear: to accelerate progress towards ending chronic homelessness in the Greater Hartford region. As the lead agency within the Greater Hartford and Central Coordinated Access Network, Journey Home partners with social service providers to solve the problem of chronic homelessness with housing, employment, and support services to offer those experiencing homelessness paths toward independent, fulfilling, and productive lives.

When COVID-19 arrived in Connecticut, one of the most pressing concerns from state and municipal public health and housing officials was protecting homeless residents as shelters in other states had become virus hotspots. After calls from the City of Hartford and state officials, Journey Home quickly developed a plan to protect the highest-risk homeless residents, including the elderly and people with existing health conditions, by procuring rooms at local hotels. To support this work, Journey Home received a $150,000 grant from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving’s COVID-19 Response Fund.

“This is obviously nothing we had ever planned on doing,” said Journey Home Executive Director Matt Morgan. “But we recognized the need to respond to these challenges to protect our residents and avoid some of the horrific experiences we had seen in other states. We are fortunate to have a creative and dedicated staff as well as an incredibly effective network of talent and compassionate social service agencies to effectively implement these plans.  We are also grateful to receive strong support from our donors and Hartford Foundation for Public Giving to provide us with the additional resources we needed to respond to this crisis.”

The first phase of this effort was to hire temporary staff for the hotels and relocate the elderly and immunocompromised clients. In the second phase, Journey Home worked with local homeless shelters to further deconcentrate them by relocating additional clients or the entire shelter operations to hotels. Journey Home collaborated with staff at South Park Inn, CRT McKinney Shelter, CRT East Hartford Shelter, and the Enfield Warming Center, and relocated several residents from Salvation Army and Open Hearth as well. The third phase has entailed increasing temporary staffing at hotels and reaching out to high-risk individuals living outside of shelters to persuade them to move into hotels.

This type of direct service is extremely challenging and is not something Journey Home was accustomed to doing; it requires not only providing people with housing but access to meals, health care services, laundry services and transportation.  Journey Home has contracted and coordinated with local social service providers such as Meals on Wheels to deliver meals for the 175 people staying in hotels. So far, the plan has been incredibly successful with only one hotel resident testing positive for COVID-19.

All of these efforts have come at significant expense. In addition to the support from the Hartford Foundation, Journey Home has also received funding from the Connecticut Department of Housing and ImmaCare, and has raised additional dollars from their existing supporters.  With the state hotel contract set to end on June 1, Journey Home and the Greater Hartford network of providers are shifting their efforts toward transitioning households from the hotels into safe housing of their own.  Journey Home is currently recruiting landlord partners who have affordable, units available to rent and who are open to exploring shared housing units for those residents on fixed, limited incomes. While the work of increasing access to housing has been Journey Home’s focus since 2007, these unprecedented times are catalyzing creative solutions that ensure every person has a safe place to call home.

• Homeless & Housing

Organization Information

Mission statement.

Journey Home works collaboratively for sustainable solutions to homelessness in the Greater Hartford Area. Journey Home is committed to fostering a caring community that ensures a home for all. We give life to this mission through: Encouraging collaboration Facilitating innovation Advocating for justice

Description

Journey Home is a nonprofit organization leading the implementation of the Opening Doors: Greater Hartford plan to end homelessness. Journey Home works with all stakeholders to lead the local effort to analyze current systems, identify gaps, and create efficiencies to end homelessness in the Capitol Region. Journey Home is not a shelter or a social service agency, but rather a facilitator, convener, and catalyst for regional change.

• Implement the Opening Doors: Greater Hartford plan to end homelessness
• Support the shelter, housing, and supportive service systems
• Create or replicate best practices through collaborative initiatives
• Measure progress towards ending homelessness

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Journey home.

Journey Home’s mission is to accelerate progress towards ending homelessness in the Connecticut's Capital region. Partnering with others, Journey Home focuses on solving the problem of homelessness rather than managing it with emergency shelter. Journey Home develops and implements innovative ways to improve the system to offer paths toward independent, fulfilling, and productive lives. We follow three guiding principles: creating awareness of existing services/streamlining access to these services; concentrating resources on programs offering measurable results; and ending homelessness. With this in mind, we have developed necessary, functional, and sustainable programs. Throughout our history we have created programming that increases access to services, housed the chronically homeless, increased supportive and affordable housing, increased employment opportunities for those who are experiencing homelessness or at-risk for becoming homeless, created greater community awareness around the issues of homelessness and the need for affordable housing, and helped create the Coordinated Access Network (CAN) system.

Journey Home’s mission is to accelerate progress towards ending homelessness in the Connecticut's Capital region. Partnering with others, Journey Home focuses on solving the problem of homelessness rather than managing it with…

Issue Areas Include

• Housing & Homelessness

Location & Contact

• [email protected]
• 255 Main St, Hartford, CT 06106, USA

Photos for Journey Home

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The problem with accessing opioid treatment in parts of CT: Getting there

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State officials and nonprofit providers are spending millions of dollars to increase access to methadone in Connecticut and to eliminate one of the biggest barriers to that opioid treatment medication: travel times.

Several of the state’s methadone providers are in the process of siting and opening new methadone treatment centers in Connecticut, including the first clinic of its kind in Middlesex County.

At the same time, state officials are preparing to spend more than $4 million from a pool of opioid settlement funds to outfit two new methadone vans, which will be capable of dispensing the vital medication to patients in more isolated corners of the state.

Those investments are key to Connecticut’s larger goal of expanding medication-assisted treatment in the state, including methadone, which is widely considered to be the most effective treatment for people with a history of using heroin, fentanyl or prescription painkillers.

[RELATED: How methadone, other meds are helping to lower CT opioid deaths]

There are roughly 30 inpatient clinics located throughout Connecticut that dispense methadone to individuals seeking treatment for opioid use disorders.

But with many of those federally licensed centers located in the state’s larger cities, there is concern that pockets of Connecticut still don’t have a level of access that is necessary to combat the ongoing opioid epidemic, which claimed the lives of more than 6,300 Connecticut residents in the past five years.

To highlight that point, a team of researchers from Yale University and Virginia Tech University recently completed a study for Connecticut that calculated how long it takes for residents in every part of the state to travel by car, bus or train to the nearest methadone clinic.

That analysis showed that for people living in and around cities like Waterbury, Hartford, Danbury, New Haven, Bridgeport, Stamford, Torrington, Norwich and New London, it often takes less than 15 minutes by car to get to the nearest methadone clinic.

But in other sections of Connecticut, it can take more than 45 minutes to drive to the closest treatment center, which can be a major impediment for people who are undergoing methadone treatment while also attempting to maintain a job or care for their families.

“Imagine being stuck in traffic, knowing you have to get dosed and you have to get back to work or you have to get your kid on the school bus,” said Nancy Navaretta, the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

Unsurprisingly, the time commitment is even bigger for people who don’t have access to a car.

Large swaths of Connecticut have no public transportation, and even in places that do, the researchers found, it can take more than two hours in some instances for people to get from their homes to a methadone clinic via public transit.

During the early stages of methadone treatment, patients are often required to travel to the clinics daily for therapy and their liquid dose of methadone, which helps to reduce the most severe symptoms of opioid withdrawal.

Benjamin Howell, one of the Yale researchers who conducted the travel study for the state, said that means some people who are in the initial phases of treatment could spend three to four hours per day on a bus just to receive their medication.

That can be a major deterrent for people suffering from the most serious opioid use disorders, Howell said, because illicit narcotics like heroin and fentanyl can be more easily available to those individuals than the medication-assisted treatment.

“These are the people we should be championing — the people who are deciding to go get treatment,” Howell said. “We should be supporting those people as much as we can and lowering the barrier as much as we can.”

The long commute

Doug Schumann knows all too well the burden that travel times can present when attempting to access methadone treatment in Connecticut.

From 2015 to earlier this year, Schumann has been making the journey from his home in Middletown to a clinic in Hartford operated by the Root Center, the state’s largest methadone treatment provider.

Schumann wasn’t excited about making the 20-mile commute six days a week. He did so because, for the past nine years, the Root Center’s clinic in downtown Hartford was the closest medication-assisted treatment center available to him.

Schumann, who became dependent on opioids after initially being prescribed painkillers to treat the symptoms of pancreatitis, said during the first couple months of his methadone treatment in 2015, the distance between his home and the Hartford clinic was extremely difficult to overcome.

The car he was using broke down shortly after he began making the half-hour commute. That setback resulted in him taking a three- to four-hour round-trip bus ride to Hartford for more than a month, which was a major hassle while he was in the nascent stages of recovery.

Schumann said he was able to overcome the significant commute time by forming a daily routine, which required him to get up before dawn so that he could reach the treatment center by 5:30 a.m.

“It took me a long time to get where I am now,” he said.

But other Middletown residents who sought out treatment did not have the same success that Schumann did when faced with the prospect of traveling to clinics in Hartford, New Britain or Manchester every day.

“A lot of people that I know have dropped out because of the distance,” Schumann said.

Filling the gaps while fighting the stigma

The commute for Schumann and other people living in and around Middletown got a lot easier in April, after the Root Center began accepting patients at the first methadone clinic in Middlesex County.

The opening of that new center , along Washington Street in Middletown, will fill one of the biggest geographic gaps in methadone treatment in the state and ensure every county in Connecticut has at least one clinic capable of dispensing the highly regulated medication.

The travel study produced earlier this year showed that residents who lived along the lower Connecticut River valley in towns like Chester, Haddam and Lyme previously faced more than half an hour in a car or two hours on a bus to get to the nearest methadone clinics.

Steven Zuckerman, the executive director of the Root Center, said those travel times should be dramatically reduced now.

The creation of the new clinic was not easy, however. It took more than five years and a lawsuit against Middletown’s Planning and Zoning Commission to get permission.

The Root Center committed a substantial amount of time and money to building the treatment center, Zuckerman said, because the organization knew there was an unmet need for opioid treatment in the region.

That is reflected in the Root Center’s current list of patients. Zuckerman said his organization has 180 patients with Middlesex County addresses who have been travelling to the organization’s other clinics in Hartford County.

We’ve been stuck in this situation where it’s been stigmatized for so many years. Steven Zuckerman, executive director of the Root Center

Some of those patients, he said, testified during earlier meetings of the Middletown Planning and Zoning Commission about the need for a clinic in Middlesex County and the benefits it could provide.

But in return, Zuckerman said, those patients were met with “brutal comments” from other members of the public, who openly disparaged people who were receiving treatment for an opioid use disorder.

That type of local opposition to methadone treatment centers in Connecticut has not gone away.

A group of residents in Guilford is fighting a newly proposed clinic being constructed in that town by the APT Foundation, another nonprofit treatment provider headquartered in New Haven.

Despite the local zoning laws allowing the center to operate there, the opponents of that new clinic continue to complain about its proximity to homes and schools.

In response, Guilford’s first selectman and the executive director of the APT Foundation said the patients who will access that clinic already live in Guilford and surrounding communities. But that has done little to quiet the opposition.

The recurring complaints are representative of the wider stigma that surrounds the opioid treatment drug, several providers and methadone patients told The Connecticut Mirror.

“We’ve been stuck in this situation where it’s been stigmatized for so many years,” said Schumann.

A mobile solution

While the nonprofit providers continue to advocate for additional methadone centers in the state, Connecticut officials are working on another strategy to fill in any remaining gaps in the network.

In March, the members of the Connecticut Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee, which is responsible for managing the settlement funds, voted to spend $4 million over the next three years to help providers retrofit two vans to dispense methadone.

Navaretta, the DMHAS Commissioner, said the settlement committee chose to spend that money because it believes those roving clinics will increase the number of people who are enrolled in a methadone program and, ultimately, save lives.

“Over and over again, by various authorities, it’s been shown that medication for opioid use disorders is the most effective intervention,” Navaretta said.

DMHAS will accept bids in the coming months from licensed methadone providers who are interested in operating the vans. Agency officials said they could be up and running by sometime next year.

The state intends to give preference to treatment providers that will use the vans to cover Connecticut’s northeast corner, northwest corner, southeast corner or the central part of the state. All of those areas were identified as regions with significant commute times to existing clinics.

We wouldn’t be able to do it if there wasn’t the opioid settlement dollars to really provide seed money. John Hamilton, president and CEO of Liberation Programs

John Hamilton, the president and CEO of Liberation Programs, which runs methadone clinics in Stamford and Bridgeport, said that without the state’s financial support, nonprofit providers like his would be unlikely to build and staff the mobile methadone vans.

The cost for the mobile treatment centers is substantial, Hamilton said, because the vehicles need to meet strict regulations required by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which polices methadone because it is, itself, a narcotic.

The vans will need a bathroom, a safe that is bolted to the vehicle and all of the equipment that is necessary to dispense the liquid methadone to patients. All of those upgrades, state officials said, could cost up to half a million dollars.

The groups that operate the vans will also need insurance and licensed nurses to staff the vehicles, which is why the settlement advisory committee also set aside money to cover operational costs for several years.

“We wouldn’t be able to do it if there wasn’t the opioid settlement dollars to really provide seed money,” said Hamilton, whose intends to apply to run one of the two vans.

State officials believe the vans could serve multiple purposes.

Luiza Barnat, the agency’s director of opioid services, said the vans will increase public awareness of methadone and other recovery services in smaller towns, and she said they should increase the number of people who stick with the treatment.

“I think the vans really provide a lot of engagement and are able to reach the people that we’re currently not reaching at all,” Barnat said.

Officials also hope the vans will be able to travel to skilled nursing facilities and long-term care centers to ensure patients no longer need to wean themselves off the opioid-treatment medication while they are recovering from a surgery, an illness or an injury.

Hamilton said all of those additional services can help help get more people enrolled in a methadone program.

That’s vital, he said, when research has shown that only a small portion of the people who could benefit from methadone are actually accessing the medication.

Andrew Brown Investigative Reporter

Andrew joined CT Mirror as an investigative reporter in July 2021. Since that time, he's written stories about a state lawmaker who stole $1.2 million in pandemic relief funds, the state Treasurer's failure to return millions of dollars in unclaimed money to Connecticut citizens and an absentee ballot scandal that resulted in a judge tossing out the results of Bridgeport's 2023 Democratic mayoral primary. Prior to moving to Connecticut, Andrew was a reporter at local newspapers in North Dakota, West Virginia and South Carolina. His work focuses primarily on uncovering government corruption but over the course of his career, he has also written stories about the environment, the country's ongoing opioid epidemic and state and local governments. Do you have a story tip? Reach Andrew at 843-592-9958

Sidewalk expansion could pause outdoor dining for some in West Hartford Center

By sydney boyo • published april 29, 2024 • updated on april 29, 2024 at 6:20 pm.

Changes coming to West Hartford Center next year could impact businesses utilizing the town’s on-street parking space. The area is known for its outside dining and construction could temporarily pause this option for many restaurants.

“In West Hartford it’s essential,” said Whitney Gostyla, a waitress at Luna Pizza. “It’s essential to see that your place is busy and there are people that are interested in being there.”

In the past, restaurants in the center extended their outdoor dining seating into the parking area and added concrete barriers to protect diners.

Restaurants like Zohara already have large a sidewalk in the front and warm weather means more business.

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“We’ve had the patio out for about two weeks,” said Zohara’s general manager Kara Rosado.“When the weather is nice, we can do upwards to 3,500 guests a week.”

As part of the town’s infrastructure master plan, sidewalk expansion construction is set to take place sometime next year. This would mean the restaurants utilizing the on-street parking would need to pause outdoor dining during construction of the sidewalk.

Àvert Brasserie, the sister restaurant to Zohara, is one of the restaurants that has been using the on-street parking option.

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“They really rely on that,” said Rosado. “Restaurants that don’t have a sidewalk like this or don’t have any patio space at all, they definitely need that for sure to make the most of the season.”

The town manager could not be reached to comment on this story. The town’s master plan says the sidewalk expansion will take place in phases, with each phase lasting between three and six weeks.

For the 2024 outdoor dining season, the town will bring back the on-street dining option for restaurants at the West Hartford Center and a limited amount at Blue Back Square.

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