Matthew Gismondi lived in a tent before developing enough composure to spend his nights at a night shelter and seek out meals and other aid at the Homeless Alliance's day shelter.

It was at the day shelter that Gismondi, 49, learned that he could earn money selling the Curbside Chronicle street magazine through Curbside Enterprises' vendor program.

His confidence blossomed as a street vendor β€” he could create his own schedule β€” with the goal of returning to a traditional work setting.

"It was a nice way to ease back into that," he said.

Gismondi, who has a degree in graphic design, is no longer homeless and he did return to a traditional work environment at Curbside Flowers, where he has been able to reconnect with his artistic side.

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And Curbside Enterprises, like Gismondi, has also bloomed.

The organization reached an important milestone on April 1 when it officially became a nonprofit independent of the Homeless Alliance.

Ranya Forgotson and Whitley O'Connor, Curbside Enterprises' co-founders, said most people have known Curbside as a program under the Homeless Alliance's umbrella. The pair said Curbside and the Homeless Alliance will continue to work together to remove barriers and help create long-term solutions for people experiencing homelessness and poverty in Oklahoma City, but Curbside is now standing on its own.

"We are so grateful to the Homeless Alliance for all the support they've given us all of these years," Forgotson said.

Curbside's leaders said the organization will work to provide income, employment and housing opportunities to some of the city's most vulnerable neighbors as an independent nonprofit.

The locations for all but one of the nonprofit's four social enterprises β€” the award-winning Curbside Chronicle β€” will remain the same, the founders said. The husband-and-wife duo said the Arnall Family Foundation has provided office space for $1 a year for Curbside Enterprises. The new office will house the Curbside Chronicle, plus Curbside's administration and social services operations. The nonprofit also has established its own independent board of directors.

The couple said before they started Curbside Enterprises 13 years ago, they approached the Homeless Alliance to see if the agency would be willing to serve as an "incubator" for their fledgling idea to start a street magazine sold by vendors throughout Oklahoma City. The program aimed to provide low-barrier employment opportunities for people experiencing homelessness while educating the community about homelessness and how they could help their unsheltered neighbors.

O'Connor, Curbside's chief executive officer, said Homeless Alliance leaders embraced the idea of the magazine, and so did the community at large.

He said Curbside got to a point where it launched a new enterprise about every three years "on the dot." The social enterprises that followed Curbside Chronicle also received a similar positive response from the community. These enterprises include Sasquatch Shaved Ice, a snow cone stand and mobile unit; Curbside Flowers, the full-service flower shop where Gismondi is a staff member; and Curbside Apparel, a screen-printing company.

O'Connor said each of the new launches "allowed us to expand the folks we're working with, increasing hours of employment β€” all the things we really started this work for."

Operating as an independent nonprofit presents a "new opportunity for us to kind of deepen that impact, even those community relationships," he said.

"I think the beauty of social enterprise is that it takes a community ... to end and to address a complex issue (homelessness) like this," O'Connor said.

"What makes Curbside really unique is that we invite people in to be a solution."

The couple said Curbside Enterprises will continue to rely on donations and public support as it continues to help the community's most vulnerable neighbors. To that end, Curbside is seeking community support through monetary donations to help ensure that the transition to an independent nonprofit is a smooth one. Donations help Curbside pay for job coaches, rental deposits, training supplies, IDs and housing case management, among other essential program costs.

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Forgotson said many community members know Curbside vendors in green but they might not know that Curbside has its own social services team that helps remove barriers to homelessness. This team includes housing case managers and vendor support staff members who are ultimately helping the unsheltered find and maintain housing.

"Each year, we help about 200 people step out of homelessness," she said.

"They help clients get IDs, get connected to legal services, get connected to mental health, physical health, just all kinds of support that they need to get back into housing."

Meghan Mueller, president and chief executive officer of the Homeless Alliance, said Curbside spinning off on its own is bittersweet, but it "was a really natural step for a lot of reasons."

β€œThis milestone has been nearly 13 years in the making,” she said.

"I remember when we brought Curbside on as a program. I'm sad for our organization, but for the community, I'm so excited."

Mueller said both Homeless Alliance and Curbside have "snowballed" in a way that no one could have predicted. She reiterated the Curbside founders' assertions that the two nonprofits would continue working together in the future.

"The work that we do is still really closely related and none of that is going to change," she said. "If anything, we are heading into this with a strong foundation of collaboration."

For more information about Curbside Enterprises or to donate to the nonprofit, go to https://www.curbside.org/.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Curbside got its start with Homeless Alliance, now it's independent