About CHEP

Helping Veterans by Providing Housing & Educational Programs that Benefit Vets

Chesapeake Health Education Program, Inc. (CHEP) is a 501 (c) (3) organization that has a dual mission of providing veteran only supportive housing through veteran-only programs and hosting affordable, high quality educational programs for healthcare providers in Harford and Cecil Counties as well as the surrounding counties and states. Our nation’s heroes deserve the best care possible and with your support, CHEP is able to not only provide housing, but also educate the clinicians who provide vital care to these Veterans every day. You can provide your support by attending a CHEP sponsored program, participating in one of our fundraising events, or by donating directly to CHEP’s housing programs.

Our History

CHEP originated in 1990 as an organization with the sole purpose of providing quality continuing education to health care professionals. In 1995, CHEP was presented with an opportunity to provide supportive housing to military veterans who needed a home and a second chance in life.  Over the years CHEP has become a true hybrid organization that has both a commercial and a social mission.  In the past, rather than depending on charitable donation or grants, the organization has depended largely on its own commercially generated revenue to fund its social mission—housing and supporting homeless veterans.

As a non-profit we exist to sustain our key mission, housing and supporting homeless Veterans.  The path to sustainability requires profit making initiatives that provide reliable funding for critical but decidedly unprofitable mission focused work.

How We Do It

CHEP provides our homeless veterans and veterans-in-need with supportive housing and life-saving support!

Even with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan officially over, some American men and women still find it difficult to reintegrate back into their communities after serving our county. The sacrifices these men and women made may not appear in the headlines as frequently, but their needs continue to be prevalent. The professionals who provide follow up care and case management services to this population are faced with a variety of challenges. It is our mission to equip these professionals with the skills needed to serve our veterans, and to provide support to the veterans themselves as they transition back into everyday life successfully.

The Program Managers and staff working within CHEP’s two supportive housing programs are skilled at handling work of the most complex nature, working daily with Veterans who are vulnerable, homeless, or near homeless due to the lack of support from friends, family, and their communities, and find themselves running out of options.

The veterans we serve know all too well the experiences of a life lived in near poverty conditions, sleeping in cheap hotels, or living in overcrowded and substandard housing conditions. CHEP’s supportive housing programs assist VA medical centers by augmenting and/or supplementing care for our patriots. The common goal is to achieve independent, stable, permanent housing in their respective communities.

How do we directly support our veterans?

  • Supportive Housing – a highly personal, caring and stable living environment located in two central areas of need throughout the east coast: Perry Point, MD and Charleston, SC
  • Life-saving support to include case management, vocational rehabilitation, financial management skills and life skills training.
  • Read some of the amazing success stories of our CHEP Veterans.

Our Unique Funding Model Sets Us Apart

We are able to fund our housing support efforts in three unique ways:

Fees for services   

  • Our premier planning and delivery of local accredited continuing education training seminars and national conferences for healthcare providers
    • When you take a CHEP course, you are not only receiving much needed training and continuing education, but dollars from each program go directly to fund supportive housing program needs.

Grant awards and In-kind support

Fund Raising And Awareness Raising Activities

Goals

  • Remain a recognized and well respected provider of service-intensive supportive housing in those areas where we currently operate programs: Perry Point, MD Washington, D.C., and Charleston, SC.
  • Provide supportive housing and related services that help homeless Veterans achieve goals of residential stability, increase their skill level and/or income and obtain greater self-determination.
  • Offer relevant, cost effective continuing education programs for healthcare providers as an ongoing mechanism to sustain supportive housing program needs that are not within the scope of federal grant and per diem reimbursement.