Step-It-Up Ministries is the product of experience meets need. As a recovery “success story” myself, and a counselor in a recovery program, I not only “lived” the situation of being homeless and virtually helpless, but see this same drama being repeated again and again in our community.
​
This as such, recalling my own efforts to find suitable housing from which to work, grow and reunite with my family and seeing so many men and women in similar situations finding the same frustrations and lack of services to meet them, I decided my life’s calling was to help create an alternative for them. My own research and attempts to find such housing has shown me that there is a definite lack of housing for recovering adults, and in some cases, a lack of suitable quality and guidance within the houses that do exist.

It is my own very personal experience with years of drug dependence, abuse and recovery that gave me the background and ability to effectively deal with and help treat abusers and aid them in recovery. It takes a very determined, strong and knowledgeable person with “street smarts” to know when, why and how to intervene in the life of a recovering addict to ensure their success.

I believe I, and the people I have chosen to work with, have just what it takes to make this happen.Recent internet searches for recovery or half-way housing resulted in few, if any local housing units described as such. Most of this housing is found by word of mouth, counselors who know of such places or people in recovery who find one. Imagine the frustration and fear of a person desperately in need of housing NOW and finding this same situation. They realize that returning to the same neighborhood from which they came almost guarantees a relapse. What are they to do? Even when they find such housing, there is no guarantee that there is adequate supervision, guidance, rules and advocacy to ensure their successful re-entry to society and reunification with children and family members.

The Step-It-Up Ministries plan takes into account as many of the pitfalls of recovery as possible and puts steps in place to prevent or correct them before they thwart the success of the home and its inhabitants. We are heartened by the success of such carefully planned, supervised and successful half-way houses in other locations and believe that by sticking to our plan of operation, audits and outcome-based review, we can replicate and reproduce this for our own residents. We hope you will join us in this cause, either as an active participant or behind-the scenes supporter. Please feel free to contact me to set up an in-person meeting to discuss how we can network together in this “Vision”.


Sincerely,
Maxine Dooley, CEO,
Step-It-Up Ministries
863-618-8440