Brenda Jeans Sober Living Facility

Brenda Jean's Sober Living Facility goals is to help our residents get back on track by taking control of their lives. Success looks different for someone who is suffers from mental health as opposed to someone who is on probation/parole, homeless, suffers from substance abuse, or any combination for mental health, probation/parole, homeless, and substance abuse. Our focus is on what the residents are doing to enhance their lives for the better. The goal is to show each resident that their life is meaningful and they to have the ability to help a family in need or help a undergraduate student obtain their degree.

Exposure is our strategy. Our residents see the people that Brenda Jean's Sober Living Facility helps every week. At one given time it is common for there to be interns in our facility from four different higher education institutions. It is also common for our residents to see the line of individuals lined up for Brenda Jean's Food Pantry, only to see that line significantly increase due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These strategies do not work for all residents, which is the reason why Brenda Jean's Sober Living Facility also have peer-led groups and one on one meetings with individual residents. Our staff keep weekly progress notes on each resident so that we can monitor the progress. We use love and compassion to help facilitate Brenda Jean's Staff in helping our residents get on track.

We are capable of meeting our goals with the assistance of our community partnerships such as Community Action Partnership of Kern (CAPK), California State University of Bakersfield (CSUB), Bakersfield College (BC), United Education Institute (UEI Bakersfield Campus), Santa Barbara Business College (SBBC Bakersfield Location), Clinica Sierra Vista, Kern Behavioral Health and Recovery Services, Kern Department of Human Services, and many other organizations. Due to our ongoing partnerships it allows Brenda Jean's Sober Living Facility to meet our goals.

Brenda Jean's Sober Living Facility have two ex-offenders admitted to California State University of Bakersfield. We are also working our magic to get our residents motivated and encouraged to say no to drugs. This is an ongoing fight and it is an uphill battle to get the residents busy with their emotional tanks full so that they do not revert back to drugs. We are teaching our residents life skills so that they could eventually be independent. Progress is slow due to the limited funding and financial resources, so we are force to be very creative. We are doing the best that we can what what we have. Every year we are getting better and better. Brenda Jean's have had over 135 interns complete their internship since 2016. Brenda Jean's has also served over 242 unique residents in our program since 2016.

In 2019, Brenda Jean's Sober Living Facility:
- Served 4,912 individuals in Brenda Jean's Food Pantry
- Served 646 Hot Meals in Brenda Jean's Soup Kitchen
- 13% of our resident population were on probation/parole
- 44% of our resident population were homeless
-41% of our resident population suffered from mental health
-42% of our resident population suffered from substance abuse

We are working on expanding and opening up a women's facility. We are constantly working to identifying Best Practices to help the community we serve. We are in the process of conducting some peer-review research to help Brenda Jean's Sober Living Facility improve its efficiency. We are also working on making a bigger impact in our community by helping out and supporting other organizations with similar goals as ours. We are in the process of expanding our digital footprint.