Our Community-Based Outpatient Treatment Services were created as a result of the collaborative partnership between Central Arizona Shelter Services (CASS) and Community Bridges.  Beginning in 2003, Community Bridges offered (and CASS subsequently requested) that Community Bridges become the primary provider of Outpatient Substance Abuse Services to the homeless population of Maricopa County receiving services from CASS.

As a result Community Bridges and CASS created a co-location partnership with CASS placing Community Bridges Counselors, Clinical Liaisons, and Peer Support Specialists on-site at CASS shelters to provide co-occurring disorder (mental health and substance abuse problems occurring at the same time) intensive substance abuse treatment services.

Another benefit of this co-location partnership is that once homeless patients complete their treatment at our Clinics, they can be transported directly to CASS where they are greeted by an interdisciplinary team made up of the CASS case management and vocational rehabilitation staff, as well as Community Bridges substance abuse/behavioral health specialists.

Community Bridges provides Day Treatment Programs at the Phoenix Human Services Campus Day Resource Center (DRC); an Intensive Outpatient hosted by CASS; Substance Use/Abuse Education and Relapse Prevention at the Vista Colina Family Shelter in Sunnyslope; and the Methamphetamine Treatment Program/Matrix Model at Steele Commons (a CASS managed 16 room permanent housing apartment complex) in Phoenix.

These programs give our homeless patients an opportunity to enter a clinically managed continuum from homelessness, to Crisis/Detoxification services, to Shelter-based/Outpatient Treatment, to permanent housing.