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- EIN 95-6143865
- (310) 264-6646
- 1453 16th Street Santa Monica CA 90404 USA
- www.opcc.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Counseling, Domestic Violence, Family Violence Shelters, Homeless & Housing, Homeless Centers, Human Services, Mental Health
Mission: Founded in 1963, OPCC is a community-supported organization in which staff, volunteers and clients work together with mutual respect to address the effects of poverty, abuse, neglect and discrimination. The agency's programs are designed to empower people to access the resources they need to ensure their survival, end their victimization and improve the quality of their life. OPCC provides a common ground for our diverse community to effect public policy and advocate for responsive human services.
Programs: Access center (originally known as the drop-in center) was the first program of opcc and opened in 1963. It is often the first point of entry for low-income and homeless individuals and families seeking assistance. Access center provides services ranging from meeting people's immediate needs for food, clothing and personal hygiene to ongoing case management and linkages to health and mental health care, substance abuse treatment, housing and employment. Within the access center is shwashlock, an acronym for showers, washers and lockers, that provides homeless people with access to restrooms, shower and washer facilities, as well as a place to store personal belongings while they are working or looking for work and until they can find more stable housing.
daybreak, founded in 1987, is the only program on the westside designed exclusively for homeless women suffering from long-term debilitating mental illness. Daybreak addresses the needs of these women by providing a safe and accepting environment where they can find dignity, support and access to information and resources needed to stabilize their lives and move into permanent housing. Daybreak's continuum of services includes a day program, interim housing program, an aftercare program known as women in new directions ("wind") and a micro-enterprise (daybreak designs).
safe haven utilizes a "housing first" community model to serve chronically homeless individuals living with co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse disorders, with 25 beds available and full day services for homeless people who are willing to come indoors. This gentle form of engagement, which does not require a commitment to treatment as a precondition for housing, is accepted as a best practice by the u. S. Department of housing and urban development ("hud") and by homeless policy organizations throughout the nation.