Services
Free to you. All of it. Always.
No client of Blame Bates has ever paid us a dollar — whether you come through a Community Connect contract or you walk in off the street.
When nobody's steering
Care Coordination
One person who knows your whole situation, keeps the plan moving, and answers the phone.
Housing applications, treatment intake, benefits, transportation, ID and documents, job service, medical and behavioral health appointments — coordinated by one person who actually knows your file.
We don't hand you a list of numbers and wish you luck. We make the call with you, we follow up, and we tell you where things really stand.
The goal is to make ourselves unnecessary. If you still need us in three years, we did it wrong.
Who qualifies
Care coordination is delivered under ND Community Connect and requires Cass County residency. If you're already assigned a care coordinator or on Free Through Recovery, we can't duplicate that — but we can still help you other ways.
When you're doing it alone
Peer Support
Time with someone who has been where you are and came out the other side.
Our peer support specialists have lived it. Not studied it — lived it. That changes what a conversation can do.
Regular check-ins, someone in the passenger seat at the hard appointments, and a person to call at the exact moment you're about to make a decision you'll regret.
When the system won't answer
Legal & Systems Advocacy
Someone in the room with you — at court, at the landlord's office, on hold with the county.
Ashley spent nearly eight years as a Cass County Sheriff's Deputy and ran the CSU program out of the jail. She knows how the system talks, where it stalls, and who to ask.
Court dates, probation, release planning, landlord agreements, benefit denials, provider disputes. We show up and we advocate — respectfully, and without backing down.
When you need something tonight
Street Outreach
Meals, hygiene, blankets and warm layers — handed out downtown, no application, no questions.
Every other Sunday we're downtown serving 60 to 75 meals along with toiletries, socks and seasonal gear to people who are unsheltered or in low-income housing.
There's no form for this one. You don't have to qualify. Show up.
Community Connect
Pick us as your provider.
Blame Bates is an approved Community Connect provider through North Dakota Health & Human Services. If you’re eligible, the state covers your care coordination and peer support — you just have to name us on the application.
Not sure whether you qualify, or already enrolled somewhere else? Call us before you fill anything out. A two-minute conversation can save you a month of paperwork, and if we’re not the right fit we’ll tell you who is.
The deal
What we will and won't do.
Read this before you call, so nothing about working with us is a surprise.
- We won't pay your rent.
- We'll help you save the deposit yourself — and cover the gap when you're close.
- We won't do it for you.
- We'll show you how once, do it beside you twice, then watch you do it alone.
- We won't keep you on the caseload.
- Success means you graduate. The door stays open, but you won't need it.
- We won't sugarcoat it.
- If you're walking back toward jail, you'll hear it from us before anyone else.
- We won't charge you a dollar.
- Every service here is free to every client, contract or not.