I Want It My Way

When new clients come to TLC, beat down, homeless and hungry, they usually say they’re willing to do whatever it takes to change. But after they're here a few weeks they sometimes lose that willingness.

We had an example of that this week with some clients who'd been with us for a few months without paying service fees. It’s not uncommon for clients to owe us money, sometimes more than a thousand dollars before they finally find work and begin to pay service fees. In the case of these clients, they’d been working on labor tickets. And while they still owed TLC for several weeks of residency, they were working and chipping away at their back balances. But then all of a sudden things changed.

One of those who'd been working on a regular labor ticket decided he didn't want to to work that day;he wanted to look for another job. However, a rule at TLC is when clients owe a back balance they must work the job we provide until their service fees are zero. While we understand people want to find their own jobs, the more important factor to us is for clients to pay back service fees before they seek different employment. Because what happens when people get a new job is it takes two to three weeks for them to get paid and start taking care of their responsibilities.

Often have clients claim that "it's all about the money." And, of course, we've heard this for years. But what many people don't understand or care about is that TLC is a nonprofit corporation that receives no funding. We are a self-supporting organization; one that has barely broken even over the past three years. So when someone says "it's all about the money" they are right in the sense that we need to collect what they owe us in order to continue operating.

What many unhappy clients don't look at it is that TLC is one of the few organizations where one can get help for drug or alcohol problems without having money or insurance. However, once they recover from their initial demoralization, the ego comes back into play and they once more are in charge of their lives.

Our disease is so strong that within a few weeks – after being homeless, jobless, demoralized and hungry - we can be back in charge. And maybe ready to pick up another drink or drug if we don't get our way.