A life-changing program in Butler County is helping those who need a boost get back on their feet.

For the past 26 years, the Middlesex-based Lighthouse Foundation has offered people a chance to set and reach goals to exit a life of homelessness, poverty and addiction.

Participants who need a lift in life can spend up to 18 months living in one of 18 housing units as they work toward their goal of independence.

Those who opt in quickly learn that they must put in the work required to turn their lives around.

Roughly 70 people go through the program each year.

Program director Mark Lane said there are widely varying reasons for each client’s homelessness, including substance abuse, growing up in poverty with no one to teach them important life skills, getting kicked out of their homes at age 18 and other issues.

“We try to get them past that,” Lane said.

Some leave the program because they are not in a place in their lives where they can adhere to the rules and improve themselves.

Once a client enters the program, caseworkers help him or her set goals, identify the barriers that could prevent them from reaching those goals and create a workable plan to achieve them.

“We try to look at the reason why they became homeless and help them move past those obstacles,” Lane said.

Each client is required to get their GED if they haven’t finished high school.

Caseworkers then help them find a job and enroll them in financial literacy or parenting classes.

Each client is drug tested upon entering the program, and anyone who has a history of drug abuse continues to be tested randomly after that.

There are an estimated 553,742 people in the United States experiencing homelessness on a given night, 13,199 of them in Pennsylvania.

A half-million people could fill nearly eight NFL stadiums.

We realize that the coronavirus has monopolized headlines since its outbreak early last year, but homelessness and opioid addition are other issues facing our community.

We commend Lighthouse and other agencies for keeping their focus on those who need help.

—JGG