Jessica Schumacher is closing in on six months of sobriety.
“I would’ve never thought that I would be able to come as far as I have. This is the longest I’ve been clean in eight years,” she said. The 23-year-old said she used to use marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin.
After relapsing in a Pregnant and Parenting Women’s program while pregnant with her son, Schumacher went through inpatient treatment at Lifeline Connections and started getting her life back on track, though she couldn’t find any openings at local Oxford houses. While attending Faith Center Church she met Mary Pekkala, who works with Kleen Street Recovery and invited Schumacher to live in a recovery house for women. She moved into the house with her son, now 4 months old, in the spring.
“It saved my life,” Schumacher said. “Being in a house of women, I get a lot of help. I get a lot of feedback. If they see that I’m going downhill, they’re there for me.”
There are still issues to resolve, but Schumacher knows recovery is a process. Besides working through Diversion to clean up her criminal record, she’s also involved in Child Protective Services and wants to eventually regain custody of her 3-year-old daughter.
Schumacher works 20 hours a week at Kleen Street Recovery Cafe off Saint Johns Boulevard, which is modeled after Seattle’s Recovery Cafe. Some people get coffee and sandwiches at the cafe without realizing what Kleen Street does. Kleen Street started nearly five years ago as just a cafe — a safe and sober place for people in recovery — but it’s grown into a multiservice nonprofit tailored toward people in recovery, especially veterans. Co-founder Jeff Talbott is an Army veteran who started by reaching out to veterans living on the streets.
The mission is to help anybody who comes through the door, whatever they may be trying to recover from. Besides the cafe, Kleen Street occupies two other units inside a strip mall at 5317 N.E. Saint Johns Road. Every day, at least a couple of recovery groups meet at Kleen Street, and there are job fairs every month.
Over the years, Kleen Street has connected with organizations, such as Lifeline Connections and the Giving Closet, and continues building its relationships with other service providers. People have been referred to the certified nursing assistant training school next door and across the street to Partners in Careers.
“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We are just reaching out and finding every avenue that is out there right now,” said Talbott, 51. “I didn’t come up with a new invention or a happy pill that miraculously helps somebody get out of homelessness. We do give them a chance, and they actually do this themselves. They do the step work. … We are aligned with them because we’ve all been there.”
Talbott, like his clients, is in recovery.
“We see each other walk through the doors every day. We see ourselves. When they come in the doors broken and needing some type of assistance — that’s how I used to be,” he said. “So, I’m reminded every day of, first of all, what I don’t want to go back to and also to see the progress I’ve made in my life. … They’re not bad people trying to get good. They’re sick people trying to get better.”
Housing Director Cody Shaw, 35, has been clean and sober for six years.
“I remember exactly what it was like,” Shaw said. “I have a tattoo on my forearm that reminds me every day ‘just because someone is lost doesn’t mean they’ve lost their value.’ ”
He said besides helping people navigate resources, housing has become the nonprofit’s biggest project. Kleen Street leases nine properties where 32 men, 12 women and a child (Schumacher’s son) are housed. Talbott calls them “vet villas.” What Shaw said sets Kleen Street apart from other agencies is that people get second chances if they relapse.
“We help them get help and give them another shot,” he said.
They try to keep people accountable by checking in multiple times a week, doing random drug tests and having people help fix up the houses they live in.
“It gets overwhelming,” said Talbott, who estimates he works 15 or so hours every day.
Funding comes from the cafe and Vancouver Church, the federal Access to Recovery program covers two people’s monthly rent, and some houses produce income, Talbott said. Home Depot has helped with paint, brushes and other supplies for fixing up the houses.
“We have a lot of really big plans in the works,” Shaw said.
Besides fixing up more houses to provide transitional housing, Talbott would like to someday be able to build showers in a warehouse space at the back of the cafe and host a more formal shelter space, whether that’s a day shelter or something else. The group is also getting a coffee trailer ready that would help raise more money. Talbott said he would like to park the trailer at Clark College and have students who are homeless veterans work there.
With a small staff of volunteers, it’s a matter of determining what’s feasible and what’s not.
“We definitely see a huge need in this community for something. Something’s got to give. We have to stop writing people off as invaluable just because they don’t have anything,” Talbott said.
Shaw agrees: “Everybody has value. Everybody has a place.”
Schumacher said she sees her place as being at Kleen Street, making coffee and doing what she needs to do to stay sober. As her daughter put it, she’s focusing on not being sick anymore.
