When nobody's steering
Care Coordination
One person who knows your whole situation, keeps the plan moving, and answers the phone.
How it worksFargo–Moorhead · 501(c)(3) nonprofit
Whatever’s in the way, we’ll help you move it.
Housing. Treatment. Court. Benefits. A ride. An ID.
Care coordination, peer support and real advocacy for adults working through mental health and substance use. Free, always — and we answer every message within 24 hours.
Or call or text 701-219-1447
- 60–75
- meals served every other Sunday
- 10–30
- people helped each week outside any contract
- $0
- charged to any client, ever
Where the name comes from
It started as a way to say no.
Ashley was going through a housing agreement with a client. The first line of the contract: no visitors for six months without approval.
He wasn’t going to be able to enforce it. The people who would show up at his door were the people he used to run with — and telling them no meant burning a bridge he didn’t feel strong enough to burn yet.
So she told him: don’t make it your rule. Make it mine. Hand them my card and tell them Bates will lose it. Then, if they need it, I’ll help them the same way I helped you.
It worked, and it kept working. That’s the whole idea behind this organization: borrow our spine until yours is strong enough. Blame us for the boundary. Take the credit for the recovery.
“Even when I was a deputy it was, hey, you’re not allowed visitors, it’s a rule — just say Bates is going to yell at me.”
Ashley Bates, founder
What we actually do
Four ways in.
Find the one that sounds like your week. You don't need to know the program name — that's our job.
When you're doing it alone
Peer Support
Time with someone who has been where you are and came out the other side.
How it works
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.
How it works
When you need something tonight
Street Outreach
Meals, hygiene, blankets and warm layers — handed out downtown, no application, no questions.
How it worksWhat happens when you reach out
No portal. No waitlist speech.
Reaching out is the hardest part, so here is exactly what it costs you: one phone call and about twenty minutes.
01
You call or text
701-219-1447. Any hour. If we don't pick up, leave a message — we'd rather call you back than miss you.
02
We call back within 24 hours
Not a queue, not a portal. A person, within a day, every time.
03
A short screen
Where you're at, what you need, and what you're already enrolled in. Some programs can't be doubled up — we'll tell you straight if that's you.
04
We meet
Our office or over the phone, your call. This is where we find the barrier nobody has named yet.
05
We start knocking it down
Housing, treatment, court, benefits, work. You do the parts that are yours. We do the parts that are ours.
How we work
Accountability is the service.
Plenty of places will hand you things. Very few will tell you the truth and then stay anyway. We do the second one.
- 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.
One case
Four years homeless. Housed in under a month.
He had worked with another provider for four years — an organization that owned housing units — and was still on the street. He told Ashley good luck. She met him, found the barrier nobody had bothered to look for, and had him in an apartment inside of four weeks.
Told by Ashley Bates; the client shared his own version on camera at the 2026 gala.
Watch Nate’s storyThe annual Blame Bates gala
Paint the Night Away
Saturday, April 24, 2027
Dinner, a paintbrush at every seat, and clients telling their own stories from the stage. It is the one night that pays for the work no contract covers.
In their words
Clients, not case numbers.
I've been around a lot of treatment facilities and different programs. I'm not judging the people, but sometimes people are there, it's a job — they get paid to do it. And then there's people like Ashley that are made to do it. That's her calling in life.
I traveled almost a thousand miles by foot. When I got here I was cold, tired, hungry and scared. I know that my life would not be the way it is today had I not had the help of Bates.
Ashley is my angel. She helped me with furniture. She helped me mentally, to stay positive. I call Ashley my angel — but in all honesty, she is a very big factor in me being successful.
Life is easier. It feels like I'm not surviving, I'm living. Finally. I wouldn't have gotten very far if it wasn't for Blame Bates.
Referrals run both directions with
- Community Connect (ND HHS)
- Prairie St. John's
- ShareHouse
- Soul Solutions
- The Village Family Service Center
- Furniture Mission
- Two Men and a Truck
The most useful thing you can do
Keep saying our name.
Word of mouth is how almost everyone finds us — and donations are what fund the two-thirds of this work no contract pays for. Both matter. One is free.
