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Stepping Stone to Recovery is partnering with the Tennessee Valley Coalition for the Homeless (TVCH), effective immediately.

The roots of TVCH stretch back to the mid 1990s, when the federal government began tracking the effectiveness of money allocated to homeless services. In the latter part of that decade, the state Housing and Urban Development (HUD) field office in Knoxville identified needed improvements to homeless services in the area. After initial growth and outreach through HUD, TVCH was named in 2008 as a continuum of care nonprofit serving a 12-county region.

Stepping Stone to Recovery is a new, low-cost drug and alcohol treatment facility outside of Knoxville that opened this summer. An outgrowth of Cornerstone of Recovery, Stepping Stone is a new organization designed to provide high-quality treatment for those with limited financial means or government-issued healthcare, using time-tested clinical and traditional models that have proven effective for almost three decades. It is a unique entity, separate from Cornerstone but with deep roots in the local recovery community. Stepping Stone provides many of the staff members who will help patients find what they themselves have discovered – that recovery is possible for anyone who has within them the willingness to recover and the tools provided by a reputable substance abuse treatment center.

“We started Stepping Stone to specifically target the same communities that TVCH serves,” said Rod Jackson, Stepping Stone program director. “Under the Cornerstone umbrella, our mission has always been to turn addicts and alcoholics into responsible, productive and content individuals, but Stepping Stone is more geo-centric in that our client based is

drawn primarily from East Tennessee.”

By partnering with TVCH, the staff at Stepping Stone hopes to offer services to a client base that’s often overlooked or ignored through traditional channels, Jackson said.

“Addicts and alcoholics are often among the most vulnerable members of our community in terms of not getting the services they need to change their lives and overcome their problems. We feel strongly about the great work that TVCH does, and we hope to work closely with that organization to continue our overall mission: to offer a message of hope and freedom in which any addict or alcoholic can stop using or drinking, lose the desire to do so and find a new way to live,” said Jackson.

For more information, visit the website at www.steppingstonetn.com. For more information about the Tennessee Valley Coalition for the Homeless, visit www.tvchomeless.org.