Community
While open to all, the majority of POTS’ clients reside in the Bronx. The Bronx is home to the poorest congressional district in the United States.
People impacted by poverty are at greater risk for a host of difficulties such as hunger, malnutrition, homelessness, health problems, and developmental or educational delays.
History
In 1982, POTS opened its doors in The Bronx with the mission of becoming a loving community. In POTS’ earliest days, our founders, Fr. Ned Murphy, Sr. Jane Iannucelli and Tim Boon, heeded the call to address the food insecurity of the most vulnerable members of the neighborhood by opening a soup kitchen, which would be the first of many services to be provided over the years.
In the late 1980s, as the AIDS pandemic became the number one threat to public health, we created a program to welcome and support anyone affected during these troubling times and anyone seeking help without judgment. During this period, POTS also adapted to provide shelter to members of the community and, as New York City was implementing new housing initiatives to respond to homelessness, we took a stance to advocate for the most vulnerable in The Bronx.
By the 2000s, seeing success in providing holistic services to clients, POTS realized it could do more to address the complexities associated with poverty and respond to the increasing number of neighbors who were reaching out to us, which led us to expand our services and our facilities.
More than four decades of growth of both convening and serving the community has led us to become a comprehensive and personalized provider of services to provide a pathway to self-sufficiency for anyone with the hope of overcoming their personal and family challenges.
Approach
According to POTS’ Theory of Change, individuals will make the greatest and most-sustained progress toward stability and self-sufficiency if they are provided access to the resources, programs, and services needed to make progress in five related stability-creating areas:
Theory of Change
Supporting educational aspirations for clients and their children increases their ability to achieve and maintain stability and self-sufficiency.
Providing access to health care and preventative services stabilizes health concerns and improves clients’ quality of life.
Ensuring uninterrupted access to hygiene, grooming, and communication tools is essential to providing a stable and functioning life for our clients.
Maintaining safe and stable housing provides clients’ ad their families’ safety, peace of mind, and pathways to move forward.
Increasing financial assets including income, public benefits, food, clothing, and other material goods ensures that clients have the resources to support their stability.
POTS measures its own success by how well we help each client reach increased stability in all of these areas. Our Stability Index establishes standards for individual progress in each area. We measure both individual achievement and community achievement in determining how well we’ve done each year in achieving our mission and how we can do even better.
Part of the Solution programs are thoughtfully designed to create enduring stability for all the members of our community. We call it the one-stop shop: We have three programmatic pillars:
- Emergency Food Programs, which consist of a daily nutritionally-balanced lunch from our Community Dining Room, and a monthly supply of fresh groceries from our Pantry; More Information
- Day-to-Day Services which include clothing, a hot shower, a haircut, and medical and dental services; More Information
- Next-Step Services, which include case management and social services, plus legal, educational, workforce development, and mentoring programs. More Information
Community
While open to all, the majority of POTS’ clients reside in the Bronx. The Bronx is home to the poorest congressional district in the United States.
People impacted by poverty at greater risk for a host of difficulties such as hunger, malnutrition, homelessness, health problems, and developmental or educational delays. Not surprisingly, the Bronx has the highest percentage of people infected with COVID-19.
History
In 1982, POTS opened its doors in The Bronx with the mission of becoming a loving community. In its earliest days our founders, Fr. Ned Murphy, Sr. Jane Iannucelli and Tim Boon, heeded the call to address the food insecurity of the most vulnerable members of the neighborhood by opening a soup kitchen, which would be the first of many services to be provided over the years.
In the late 1980s, as the AIDS pandemic became the number one threat to public health, we created a program to welcome and support anyone affected during these troubling times and anyone seeking help without judgment. During this period, POTS also adapted to provide shelter to members of the community and, as New York City was implementing new housing initiatives to respond to homelessness, we took a stance to advocate for the most vulnerable in The Bronx.
By the 2000s, seeing success in providing holistic services to clients, POTS realized it could do more to address the complexities associated with poverty and respond to the increasing number of neighbors who were reaching out to us, which led us to expand our services and our facilities.
More than four decades of growth of both convening and serving the community has led us to become a comprehensive and personalized provider of services to provide a pathway to self-sufficiency for anyone with the hope of overcoming their personal and family challenges.
Approach
According to POTS’ Theory of Change, individuals will make the greatest and most-sustained progress toward stability and self-sufficiency if they are provided access to the resources, programs, and services needed to make progress in five related stability-creating areas:
Theory of Change
Supporting educational aspirations for clients and their children increases their ability to achieve and maintain stability and self-sufficiency.
Providing access to health care and preventative services stabilizes health concerns and improves clients’ quality of life.
Ensuring uninterrupted access to hygiene, grooming, and communication tools is essential to providing a stable and functioning life for our clients.
Maintaining safe and stable housing provides clients’ ad their families’ safety, peace of mind, and pathways to move forward.
Increasing financial assets including income, public benefits, food, clothing, and other material goods ensures that clients have the resources to support their stability.
POTS measures its own success by how well we help each client reach increased stability in all of these areas. Our Stability Index establishes standards for individual progress in each area. We measure both individual achievement and community achievement in determining how well we’ve done each year in achieving our mission and how we can do even better.
Part of the Solution programs are thoughtfully designed to create enduring stability for all the members of our community. We call it the one-stop shop: We have three programmatic pillars:
- Emergency Food Programs, which consist of a daily nutritionally-balanced lunch from our Community Dining Room, and a monthly supply of fresh groceries from our Pantry; More Information
- Day-to-Day Services which include clothing, a hot shower, a haircut, and medical and dental services; More Information
- Next-Step Services, which include case management and social services, plus legal, educational, workforce development, and mentoring programs. More Information