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For foundations and institutional donors

Smart Step Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit recovery housing operator, EIN 33-1822772. This page sets out the thesis we are funding against, the framework we measure ourselves by, and what a gift actually pays for — without borrowing numbers we have not earned.

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The thesis

Recovery does not fail in the program. It fails in the months after — when a person leaves a structured setting with real momentum and no stable, sober place to sleep. Housing is the variable that decides whether everything spent up to that point holds.

Smart Step operates recovery residences to cover exactly that stretch: alcohol- and drug-free homes with written standards, peer accountability, documented drug screening, and a record a court or agency can rely on. It is not a program bolted onto a house; it is a house run to a standard.

The second half of the thesis is supply. A bed only exists if an affordable home exists, and the affordable stock in the neighborhoods our residents come from keeps disappearing. Smart Step works on preserving affordable housing so that recovery housing has somewhere to be, and so the neighborhood a person returns to is still one they can afford.

The gap we work in

Between leaving a structured recovery setting and being able to hold independent housing — the period where relapse, reentry, and homelessness all compete for the same person.

Why standards are the product

Nothing about the words “recovery residence” guarantees a standard behind them. Written standards, documented screening, a real grievance process, and an audit trail are what separate a recovery residence from a house with a rule about drinking.

Why we build the record

Courts, agencies, and funders all need evidence. We built the operating platform so the evidence is produced by running the home correctly, not reconstructed afterward for a report.

Why housing preservation

Serving people in recovery and losing the affordable homes they return to are the same problem on two timelines. We work on both.

What gets measured

Below is the measurement framework — the metrics we collect from the day a person is referred, and the ones we will report against. It is deliberately a framework and not a results table. We are not publishing outcome rates until enough residents have passed a measurement window for the figure to survive your due diligence, and when we publish a rate we will publish the method and the denominator alongside it.

  • Housing retention at 6 and 12 months. Of everyone who moved in, the share still housed — here or somewhere stable they moved on to — at each window. Anyone we cannot account for counts against us, not out of the denominator.
  • Length of stay. Median and distribution, not an average: one very long stay would flatter a mean and tell you nothing about the typical resident.
  • Exits, by type and destination. Planned separations counted separately from unplanned ones, each with where the person went. An exit to permanent housing and an exit to the street are both exits; they are not the same result.
  • Employment or verified income at 90 days. Verified rather than self-reported, and counted from the move-in date so the window is the same for everyone.
  • Drug screening completion. Screens actually collected against screens the schedule called for. The selection is made by the system at random, and it records who was drawn and who was held out and why — so completion is auditable rather than asserted.
  • Court and appointment compliance. For residents under supervision who have signed a release, attendance and requirements met against requirements set. Residents with no release are not counted, and their absence from the figure is stated.
  • Return to housing after an unplanned exit. How many people come back, and how long it took. A return is a success we intend to be measured on, not a failure to bury.
  • People housed, and people served. Two separate counts — residents housed in the reporting period, and everyone who reached us and got somewhere, including those we referred elsewhere.
  • Grievances filed and resolved. Volume, category, and time to resolution. A program reporting no grievances is not a program without problems; it is one without a working grievance process.
  • Homes preserved. Affordable homes brought into or kept in service, and for how long — the housing-supply side of the work, which resident outcomes alone do not capture.

How we will report

  • Report the denominator, including residents we lost contact with.
  • Publish the calculation method next to every rate.
  • Report unplanned exits as prominently as successful ones.
  • Restate a figure publicly if we later find it was wrong, rather than quietly revising it.

What a gift funds

Gifts to Smart Step are charitable contributions to a 501(c)(3) and are used for the resident-facing program. Unit costs are being finalized against actual operating history — we would rather show you a marked gap than a modeled number.

Bed support for residents who can't cover the fee

Direct support toward a resident's program fee so an empty wallet is not what ends a recovery. Cost of one supported bed per month: {{SUPPORTED BED COST PER MONTH}}.

Opening and furnishing a home

Beds, kitchen, safety equipment, and the setup a home needs before the first resident arrives. Cost to bring one home into service: {{COST TO OPEN ONE HOME}}.

Drug screening and accountability

Screening supplies, collection, and the documentation that makes results usable by a court or agency. Annual screening cost per home: {{ANNUAL SCREENING COST PER HOME}}.

House manager capacity

The person actually in the home — the difference between a standard on paper and a standard in practice. Cost per house manager: {{HOUSE MANAGER COST}}.

Getting to work and staying there

Transportation, work documents, and the small emergency costs that derail a first job. Typical support per resident: {{WORK READINESS SUPPORT PER RESIDENT}}.

The record-keeping platform

The consent, audit, screening, and reporting system behind every claim on this page. Annual platform and compliance cost: {{ANNUAL PLATFORM COST}}.

Governance and transparency

Smart Step Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN 33-1822772, led by Will Addo (Founder & Executive Director) and Tracey Addo (Corporate Secretary & Director of Operations).

Related-party disclosure. Some homes Smart Step's residents occupy are operated by a separate for-profit company whose principals overlap with Smart Step's leadership. We are stating that up front rather than letting you find it in diligence. The standard we hold that relationship to is a written agreement at documented market rates, comparability data on file, approval by disinterested board members, and a conflict-of-interest policy followed on paper. Current status: {{RELATED-PARTY AGREEMENT AND BOARD APPROVAL STATUS}}.

  • Board composition and independent members — {{BOARD ROSTER AND INDEPENDENT MEMBERS}}
  • Most recent Form 990 — {{MOST RECENT FORM 990 — YEAR AND LINK}}
  • Financial review or audit — {{FINANCIAL REVIEW OR AUDIT STATUS}}
  • Recovery residence certification — {{CERTIFICATION BODY, STATUS AND LEVEL}}
  • Current operating budget — {{ANNUAL OPERATING BUDGET}}
  • Current funders and grants — {{CURRENT FUNDERS AND GRANTS}}

Every item above is available on request as soon as it exists. If you need one of them to open a conversation, ask — a straight answer about what we do not yet have is more useful to both of us than a slide.

What we are not claiming

Because it is easier to check a short list than a long one, here is what this page deliberately does not assert: any outcome, sobriety, or retention rate; any cost-per-bed or cost-avoidance figure; any count of homes, beds, or people served; any certification, accreditation, or approval by a public agency; any named funder or partner; and any audit or filing history.

None of that is modesty for its own sake. Each of those is a fact a funder is entitled to verify, and we will publish each one when it is verifiable — marked here until then.

Ways to give

  • Unrestricted operating support — the most useful gift, because it funds the standard rather than a line item.
  • Restricted support for a named use from the list above, reported against that use.
  • Multi-year commitments, which are what make a home viable past its first year.
  • In-kind: furnishings, professional services, and skilled volunteer time.

A gift is a charitable contribution, not an investment

Smart Step accepts charitable gifts only. We do not offer, and this page is not, an investment, a security, a fund, or any promise of financial return. If you own property and want it operated as a recovery residence, that is an entirely separate conversation with a separate company — see the property owners page. We keep those two relationships apart on purpose and will not blend them.

Common questions

Why are there no outcome numbers on this page?
Because we do not yet have a sample that would survive your due diligence, and a number we cannot defend is worse to us than a blank. The framework above is what we collect; the results follow when the denominator is real.
Are gifts tax-deductible?
Smart Step Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN 33-1822772. We provide a written acknowledgment for every gift. For your own deduction, confirm with your tax advisor — we do not give tax advice.
Can we fund a specific home or a specific resident?
You can restrict a gift to a named use, including opening a home or supporting beds. We do not accept gifts directed at an identified individual — that would compromise both the resident's privacy and our neutral intake criteria.
What reporting do funders receive?
Reporting scope and cadence are agreed in writing at the time of the grant, drawn from the framework above. Resident-level information is never shared; funder reporting is aggregate and de-identified.
How do you protect resident privacy in reporting?
Recovery status is protected information. Nothing identifiable leaves the program without an active, dated, written release from the resident, every record access is written to an audit log, and funder reporting is aggregate by design.
What would you do with an unrestricted gift tomorrow?
Current priority order and the amounts behind it: {{FUNDING PRIORITIES AND AMOUNTS}}. Ask and we will walk you through the actual sequence rather than a wish list.

Start a conversation

We would rather have one honest conversation about what we can and cannot evidence today than send a polished packet that overstates it.

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