{"id":100351,"date":"2026-01-30T03:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T03:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/100351\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T03:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T03:20:11","slug":"philadelphia-nonprofit-helps-people-with-mental-health-intellectual-challenges-find-job-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/100351\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia nonprofit helps people with mental health, intellectual challenges find job opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Philadelphia nonprofit is helping people with mental health and intellectual challenges find job opportunities.<\/p>\n

Joan Vargas is restocking the shelves at a North Philadelphia ShopRite. She has an intellectual disability and at 36 years old, this is her first job.<\/p>\n

“I am a changed person here,” Vargas said.<\/p>\n

Vargas obtained the job through COMHAR Inc., a nonprofit that supports people with mental health and intellectual challenges.<\/p>\n

“This is about empowerment. It’s about having people make choices about what they want to do,” COMHAR CEO Trapeta Mayson said. “Being able to earn a living, being able to have agency in your life.”<\/p>\n

Vargas works with a coach, Jeremiah Cousins.<\/p>\n

“She’s bubbly, she knows how to \u2014 she’s focused, she’s very serious about what she does,” Cousins said.<\/p>\n

Cousins says COMHAR provides job training and placement to support people who often face barriers because of the stigma that people with with these types of\u00a0 disabilities can’t work or are unreliable.<\/p>\n

“They can do jobs, in fact many do a better job than current employees,” Cousins said.<\/p>\n

A job giving her purpose, dignity and joy.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Philadelphia nonprofit is helping people with mental health and intellectual challenges find job opportunities. Joan Vargas is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15328,47,6725,69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-100351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-disabilities","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-nonprofit","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","13":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}