Work & Build.

VOA Workforce Development

VOA does a lot of things, but their re-entry and vocational programs are the standout. They help people with gaps in their resumes or background issues get back into the workforce with actual, marketable skills.

The training tracks include logistics, construction, and green energy, all chosen because they're real industries hiring real workers right now. None of this is symbolic skill-building. It's job-to-paycheck pipeline work.

Employment Program for People in Recovery from Addiction

EPRA (pronounced "ep-rah") is a comprehensive vocational rehabilitation program built specifically for people in recovery. Diagnostic vocational evaluation, career exploration, work skills assessment, job readiness training, and direct job placement services.

Refined over years of program evaluation and built on listening to clients, EPRA's whole approach revolves around what they call vocational recovery: the idea that returning to work in an honest and dignified way is itself a way of communicating that recovery is possible.

Adult Rehabilitation Centers

The largest free residential rehabilitation program in the United States, serving more than 150,000 adults a year. The 180-day program provides housing, food, counseling, and work therapy at no cost, funded entirely by the Salvation Army's thrift store operations. They don't take government money. They don't bill insurance.

The work therapy isn't symbolic. Participants run the thrift stores: sorting donations, repairing furniture, testing electronics, working the registers, driving the trucks. By the end of six months, you've rebuilt your work habits in the most direct way possible, by working a real job in a real operation that's funding your own recovery.

It's faith-based (Christian, specifically), which won't be for everyone. But for those who can work with that framework, it's one of the most accessible serious recovery options in the country. No insurance, no fees, no waiting list in most cases.

New Directions for Veterans

A Los Angeles nonprofit operating since 1992, specifically built for veterans. The model combines substance abuse treatment, mental health care, remedial education, job training, and job placement into a single continuum, with parenting and money management classes layered on top.

What sets NDVets apart is the throughline. Veterans don't graduate from treatment and then have to figure out housing, employment, and recovery separately. NDVets walks people from the front door (often arriving homeless and using) all the way to a savings account, stable housing, employment, and an aftercare community of peers and mentors. The OASIS program adds a dedicated track for women veterans.

Refoundry

A nonprofit incubator based in the Brooklyn Navy Yard that trains formerly incarcerated people to repurpose reclaimed materials into home furnishings, then mentors them into their own businesses. The curriculum covers high-level craft skills, finance, business, resume building, interview skills, and (this is the part most programs skip) mental health and addiction referrals as needed.

Members work 40 hours a week during the apprenticeship and get paid. Once they're capable of taking orders and making furniture themselves, Refoundry helps them incorporate their company and gives them studio space until they can rent their own. Ten businesses have been incubated so far, now employing over 125 people from their home communities.