A second chance at life.
A new kind of suicide-prevention organization. ESCAPE connects you to a real person, to a supported stay away from what is crushing you when that is what you need, and to practical help at home afterwards. Free if you cannot pay.
You don't have to explain everything.
Urgent needs go straight to trained crisis responders.
We picked someone. You can say no.
A human team matches on language, what you said you need, and who is available. No browsing, no profiles of people in distress.
Urgent help is one tap away, through partner crisis services. Supporters never replace emergency care.
Your next chapter, step by step
Built with you, by qualified people. Each item names who is responsible.
A change of place
Screened stays and restorative programs, run with licensed partners.
Screened by a clinician · travel covered · someone stays in touch for 90 days after.
Three stages. One relationship that doesn't end at the first conversation.
Most people will use the app and the help at home. A stay is for when the place itself is the problem. The first thing we are building and testing is the supported stay with 90 days of help after it.
ESCAPE Connect
The front door. One tap, a few words, and a real person is matched to you by a human team. A safety plan and a clear route to urgent help are built in.
ESCAPE Experiences
A supported stay away from the situation, run by experienced people in a place that feels restorative rather than clinical. Travel covered. Screened by a clinician first.
ESCAPE Rebuild
For 90 days after a stay, the same person stays in touch, and a written plan with money behind it works on the problem itself: work, housing, debt, grief, community.
ESCAPE is never a substitute for psychiatric hospital care, supervised withdrawal or emergency treatment. Most people who use it will never need a stay.
Sometimes a person doesn't simply need someone to talk to. They need somewhere to go, someone to belong to, and a realistic path toward a different life.
A crisis line helps someone through an urgent moment, and many follow up afterwards. ESCAPE is built for the part that is a situation, not a feeling: the rent still due, the empty apartment, the job that disappeared.
Not everyone in crisis needs a stay. Some people face problems that conversation alone cannot fix, and the right combination of safety, belonging, treatment, a change of place and practical money can open options they could not see before. ESCAPE is new and untested. We will earn trust by publishing what we measure, never by claiming a number of lives saved.
Millions reach out. Far fewer find a way forward.
Crisis services do essential work in the moment. The gap is what happens next, when the call ends and the circumstances have not changed.
Three different measures, so they cannot be added together. Not everyone who thinks about suicide needs, or would qualify for, a stay.
Start with a person.
Signing up, explaining yourself and picking a stranger is too much to ask of someone who is exhausted. So the first step is tiny: one tap, a few words, and a human team suggests one person. You can say no.
- No forms, no profile. Nobody browses anyone.
- A person, not an algorithm, decides who you talk to. Software only turns what you said into a few simple categories, then deletes the recording.
- Urgent means urgent. If someone is in danger, trained crisis responders from a partner service step in, whether or not their supporter is online.
- Nothing to re-explain. The same person carries the context through to a stay and the 90 days after.
Kept safe by people who are licensed for what they do, and a committee that can say no.
A clinical committee with real authority
A standing Clinical and Safety Committee reports to the board and can pause any feature or any stay, regardless of pressure to grow. The first hire is a licensed clinical director with suicide-prevention experience.
Partners deliver what they are licensed for
An established charity hosts ESCAPE. Experienced retreat staff run the stays. Hospitals and licensed clinicians handle assessment and treatment. ESCAPE arranges and pays, and stays responsible for who is referred where, for safety, and for the standard of the service.
Emergencies never land on a volunteer
Urgent cases go to established crisis services, following the same standards the 988 Lifeline uses. Written rules, named contacts, and every incident reviewed.
Three different things. We keep them separate on purpose.
The first pilot
- This site, and partners being signed: a host charity, a retreat team with a venue, clinicians
- A free stay offered to 30 to 60 adults in one US region, to see who says yes
- Two groups of up to 12 guests, screened by a clinician, with the retreat's own staff on site
- Ninety days of help at home for every guest, plus a comparison group who get the help without a stay
- The app used only for first contact and follow-up, with a human doing the matching
Nothing is open yet. No partner is signed yet. Costed at $250,000.
If the results are good
- Stays running all year with the same partners
- First contracts with a health system or county
- ESCAPE becomes its own charity
- The app opens to more adults, still one region at a time
- A second region, more venues, more aftercare partners
Costed at $750,000 for year two. Decided by an independent review, not by us.
The vision we are working toward
- A flagship campus of our own, part retreat and part friendly campus
- Help to start again somewhere else, including abroad where it is safe and legal
- Local chapters and a community of former guests who help the next person
- Employers who hire straight from the program
Earned through results. Not funded, not promised, not scheduled.
Straight answers to the first six questions people ask.
Who qualifies?
For the first pilot: adults, living in the pilot region, who are struggling but not in acute crisis and do not need hospital care or supervised withdrawal. A clinician makes that call before any stay. People who need more urgent care are helped to reach it, not turned away.
How does someone get in?
Through the app, or through a partner such as a clinic or a community organization. One tap, a few words, a short safety check, then a human team suggests one person to talk to. A stay is offered only after that person and a clinician both think it would help.
What does "free" include?
The app, your support person and the follow-up calls are free for everyone. A stay is free if you cannot pay, travel included; if you can pay, there is a fair published price. Practical help from the fund, such as a deposit or a course, has a per-person limit decided under written rules.
How available is my support person?
Planned as set hours and regular check-ins, several a week during a stay and at least weekly for the 90 days after, with replies within a day. Not around the clock. Anything urgent goes to crisis responders at any hour, through the same app.
What happens after 90 days?
If the plan is finished, you keep the community and can come back if things slip. If it is not finished, the plan is extended rather than dropped. Measured honestly: did the housing, the job, the treatment actually happen.
What if going home is not safe?
Then nobody sends you home. Housing partners arrange transitional accommodation, and your support person stays with you through the move. This is one of the specific situations the practical-help fund exists for.
These describe the planned pilot. Details will be finalized with the host charity and clinical partners. More questions answered →
Aspirational without being exclusive.
Nobody should need to be wealthy, attractive or outgoing to belong here. Concept imagery for the look and feel we are building toward.
ESCAPE Experiences · a partner campus concept
Community is a big part of what helpsConcept renders, not photographs of a real ESCAPE site. No real participants are shown.
Who are you here as?
Each path tells the ESCAPE story the way that audience needs to hear it, with the numbers, safeguards and asks that matter to them.
Fund a second chance
What the pilot costs, what each gift size does, how it pays for itself long-term, and exactly what your money buys first.
See the case → Clinical, residential & community partnersBuild the network with us
Who does what, what we ask of partners, what we bring, and the agreements that protect everyone.
See the partnership → Public figures & creatorsLend your voice to what comes next
A founding circle for people genuinely willing to stand behind suicide prevention, with safe-messaging rules we will never bend.
See the role → Everyone elseFor you, or someone you love
What ESCAPE will feel like to use, who the Angels are, how your privacy works, how to volunteer, and where to get help today.
Start here →Because where you are today doesn't have to be where your story ends.
A new place. A new community. A new opportunity. Help us build it carefully, prove it honestly, and then grow it.