Financial Pressure

Sometimes we’re powerless to help clients as much as we’d like. 

This came up yesterday when a middle-aged client who wanted to focus on his recovery while volunteering at TLC was forced to look for outside work to pay bills for his family. The volunteer position offered no pay - other than room and board and twenty dollars a week pocket money. When he started volunteering he thought he’d advance into a career position that would pay a living wage, one that would allow him to meet financial obligations.

 We often lose well-intentioned, good-hearted people because we can’t pay them enough. Because we’re an unfunded non-profit there are less than 20 staff members who earn enough to live on. The other 40 staff members are volunteers who work for TLC as part of their recovery. It’s an arrangement that usually works well for both the volunteers and TLC. However, it doesn’t work for those who have children to support or who have pressing financial obligations.

In a perfect world we’d be able to help everyone. But in this situation we suggested the client – who has multiple job skills – seek outside employment. And he can still work on his recovery while meeting financial obligations.