Location: Miami, Florida
Jesus Salas is a community outreach member for the CHAPMAN Partnership for the Homeless.
Since opening their doors in 1995, Chapman Partnership has admitted nearly 100,000 men, women and children experiencing homelessness in Miami, Fl and the surrounding areas. Their mission to provide comprehensive services to empower homeless residents to become self-sufficient and regain their lives.
Jesus Salas believes that the organization is providing life-altering experiences for the local homeless community. When a person becomes homeless, it affects every aspect of their life. It attacks the person’s self-esteem and makes them feel hopeless. Nothing is more debilitating then feeling helpless in one’s ability to provide for their family and their future.
“I am working on bringing awareness to the homeless family situation in South Florida to the Hispanic community. I was deeply touched by visiting the center the first time and seeing the families and the children receiving such an amazing care and support to get their lives back on track” said Jesus Salas.
The center treats each person as an individual and uses a holistic approach to care. Chapman Partnership not only provides emergency housing, but also provides a wide array of programs such as: comprehensive case management; health, mental and dental care; day care and after school services; job development, training, and placement, plus help from a variety of social service agencies, volunteers, donors and partners
Along the way to 100,000 admissions, Chapman Partnership has also achieved many other impressive milestones such as: So far, they have admitted nearly 20,000 homeless children and with the help of their 20,000 volunteers, they serve 3 hot meals a day, 365 days a year, adding up to 800,000 meals per year. Chapman Partnership also offers medical and dental. Their two medical clinics have seen more than 167,000 patient and their mobile dental unit has performed more than 76,500 procedures. What What impresses Jesus Salas the most is the organizations success rate, which is an amazing 64% in placing their residents into permanent or transitional housing compared to the nations average of 15%.
Besides being a committee outreach member for Chapman Partnership, Jesus Salas is also involved in other community organizations such as the Children Youth Life Foundation for the terminally ill kids, being the co-chair for Miami Children’s Hospital Foundation “Inaugural Gentleman’s Night”, raised over $400k for the inaugural event for the foundation. Is a Miami-Dade County School business partner and is very involved within the local community and donates both time and money to the various causes.