Chester County’s Decade to Doorways initiative is “a model for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania” and a lifeline to some 700 residents like Gabriel, who was rescued from a makeshift Kennett Square shanty and a life of alcoholism, diabetes, frostbite and gangrene, according to a Chadds Ford Live report of the second annual Community Partnership Celebration.

The combination of county resources like the ConnectPoints Homeless Coordinated Assessment System, social services agencies and landlords applauded nearly a dozen success stories and recognized 2014 Landlord of the Year Kevin A. Busza and 2014 Community Volunteer of the Year Carol Clark. It also reinvigorated the Decade to Doorways mission of preventing and ending homelessness by 2022.

“We obviously have a long way to go,” Chester County Department of Community Development Director Pat Bokovitz said in the article. “There’s still tremendous need.”

Read much more about Gabriel’s story and the progress made by Decade to Doorways on Chadds Ford Live here.