July was a pretty great month for clients changing their lives. Things sometimes slow down a bit in the summer which lets us go deeper with clients. We highly encourage our many outreach clients to come to our drop-in service. Things are so busy on outreach that we can't always get to know you and offer all our resources without the quieter environment of our drop-in! Come on by!

86 duplicated goals were achieved by clients to change their lives in July! 

•  Top of the list is housing. New housing has slowed a lot, with only 4 reporting new housing. However, a whopping 13 clients reported maintaining their housing. There may be more, but these are the natural conversations we had. We're proud of you all!

• Second and third on the list are better self-care and sobriety milestones. These sometimes go hand-in-hand. There are 26 of these. It's a very important step to start taking better care of yourself physically, mentally and emotionally. The streets and homelessness put a lot of stress on all of your parts. Figure out what helps you recharge and do it often. Little things matter in this constant battle!

•  Employment slowed in terms of reported change but was still number 4 on the list. We had 5 maintained and only 3 new. It is true that sometimes when clients get jobs, we don't see them for a while so the numbers could be low for this. But we do think the employment situation in Austin and San Marcos is slowing a bit. The biggest message in there is that when you get a job, be sure to keep it! We have lots of SYMinU courses on soft skills that help out: improving your EQ, dealing with conflict, and lots of other workplace soft skills. You learn, keep your job more often, and get points to redeem in our SYMinU store! One very cool thing to note is that we can now buy work shoes for any client in Austin or San Marcos. It's limited to one pair, and they will be black work shoes (steel toe, slip resistant, chemical resistant) but you can pick the style!

•  There are lots of other items on the list. I sometimes like to just list the ones that are onesie or two goals to remind us of all that people work on different things: Bank account, applying for benefits, church membership, getting doctor care for a pregnancy, getting new glasses, connecting with family, and exploring the concept of God. We regularly help with lots of these! Another cool thing to note is that we can now set our clients up for an eyeglass appointment in Austin. It comes with two pairs of glasses! No Medicaid required!