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Family Homelessness Increasing
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Number of homeless families increasing
January 07, 2012 9:56 PM
THE GAZETTE
At 42 years old, with a storage shed full of furniture, a car, and some money in her pocket, Andrea Garrett found herself homeless.
Garrett, who lost her job in May, got lucky this January, and with a little publicity and help from the community, she and her family of three now have a temporary home. (Read more about the Garrett family.)
Homeless advocates say more and more families are in Garrett’s shoes, and even in a community known for its generosity, there’s not enough help to go around.
For years Teresa McLaughlin, the director of Pikes Peak Homeless Outreach focused her efforts on the homeless camps of Colorado Springs, where single men and women tried to eke out an existence by living in tents. Now, joining this group of homeless people are those like Garrett, who have suddenly lost their jobs, who can’t pay their utilities bills and who have lost their homes.
“White collar people are now starting to get into that situation,” McLaughlin said. “You see a few upper middle as well as lower class … It’s everybody, it doesn’t matter who you are.”
The newly homeless family wind up on the streets unfamiliar with programs that can help them get a roof over their heads. The winter months are the busiest for organizations like McLaughlin’s, when the cold drives families to shelters in lieu of car-camping.
For a family used to their own home, shelter life makes for a difficult adjustment, McLaughlin said. Her organization works with The Aztec Motel to provide transitional housing to those who don’t make it into the shelter.
The winter holiday season in December is the best and worst time for non-profit service organizations and their beneficiaries, said Michelle Milner, the director of United Way’s 211 support hotline.
Donation drives and toy giveaways give families without means a way to give holiday gifts and cook holiday feasts. What they don’t give are jobs, homes, and way to pay utilities bills--the top three needs of families who call 211, Milner said.
The hotline is a “one-stop-shopping” system run by United Way that connects needy individuals or families to agencies who can help them.
“There are a lot of agencies, and lots of people are giving. Unfortunately there’s only a few agencies who assist with rent,” Milner said.
Organizations that help the homeless rely on the burst of Christmas-season donations. McLaughlin calls them “December do-gooders” — people who call all month offering donations.
“But after Christmas and New Years, you very rarely hear from anybody,” McLaughlin said.
Christmas comes but once a year, but need is a year-round reality that gets worse in the winter.
“The big thing is, there’s still families sleeping in cars, hiding out, wherever they can,” McLaughlin said.
Read more: http://www.gazette.com/articles/garrett-131379-homeless-families.html#ixzz1izqAyNz5
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Empty Stocking Fund Features PIH
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EMPTY STOCKING: Housing, classes were key to family's success
by ERIN PRATER
The Gazette 11/28/11, 1:30 PM
Throughout her career at the YMCA, Carrie Wieger has referred individuals to charitable organizations for assistance with basics such as housing and food.
But the mother of five never thought she’d need those services herself until the spring of 2009, when she felt the need to leave her husband and take her children, ages 2 to 11, with her.
Wieger moved her family into her parents’ two-bedroom, one-bathroom house.
“The kids and I all slept in my mom’s bed,” she said.
Two months later, Partners in Housing, one of 15 area charities receiving grants from The Gazette–El Pomar Empty Stocking Fund, accepted Wieger’s family into its two-year program, providing them with spacious temporary living arrangements and life coaching.
“They set me up an individual home in a wonderful neighborhood,” Wieger said. “Every child had a bedroom and a space of their own. At that point I would have taken a one bedroom apartment with a roof over my head and heat and water.”
Wieger was thrilled with the nonprofit’s vast array of classes on topics such as cooking, food safety, cell phone etiquette and investing.
“I took my daughter with me to those classes,” she said. “She was able to role-model that knowledge for her brothers and sisters.”
Wieger, who now works full time, graduated from the program in August and has since secured housing for her family.
She says she has Partners in Housing to thank for every good thing in her life.
“Partners in Housing was my first step to a healthy lifestyle for me and my kids,” she said. “Without a resource like that, me and my poor children probably would have been in a bad place that we never would have gotten out of. They are willing to empower and help without being a crutch.”
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Empty Stocking Fund Features PIH
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EMPTY STOCKING: Housing helps man find path to future
By ERIN PRATER
The Gazette 11/25/2011 12:48 PM
Last fall, Jay was down on his luck.
The business plan he was developing with his family, which he was living with, had fallen through. His family had kicked him out of the house.
For the first time in his life, Jay found himself living in a homeless shelter.
“I was in a really bad situation,” said Jay, who contacted Partners in Housing at the urging of a friend. “Partners allowed me a place to stay while I get my life together. I’m motivated to do better in life.”
Only Jay’s first name is being used to protect his privacy.
Partners in Housing, one of 15 area charities receiving grants from The Gazette–El Pomar Empty Stocking Fund, accepted Jay into its two-year program, providing him with housing, financial planning and life coaching.
“I made sure to utilize their services to help push my life to the next level,” he said. “Self-sufficiency is the right way.”
The program also offers services such as tutoring and therapy to its temporary housing residents.
Last year, Partners in Housing assisted 348 locals, which it refers to as “partners.”
A year after his stint in a homeless shelter, Jay is employed, attending college and developing a plan to start his own business.
Paying income-based rent helps him focus on his studies and planning his future rather than working multiple jobs to make ends meet, Jay said.
He’s now a firm believer that housing assistance can do more than put a roof over someone’s head.
“Providing housing allows people to be able to focus on what their other major priorities are, build upon those first and eventually reach self-sufficiency,” he said.
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Homelessness In the News
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Partners In Housing marks 20 years of bringing hope to homeless families
Colorado Catholic Hearald
By Bob Sallee
11/4/2011
COLORADO SPRINGS. Chelley Gardner-Smith is a graduate and former board member of Partners In Housing (PIH). She and her three children found themselves homeless 14 years ago.
Up to that time, she had been active teaching her children and involved in their church. Faced with placing her children with different families, she went to a local agency for assistance as Christmas approached, and was encouraged to contact PIH.
“Partners In Housing came to us at the darkest and scariest time of our lives,” she said. “After validating our need and program eligibility, they told me ‘We’ll put a roof over your head.’ They put me in the nicest house I’d ever lived in up to that point. They helped me with my education, and provided counseling for me and my kids.
“I worried my kids would be really messed up. . . . They all came out okay. They’re all good people, good citizens. They’re working hard. They have good marriages and are good parents. I’m a very happy grandmother.”
This month, Partners in Housing celebrates 20 years providing quality affordable housing and supportive services to homeless families with children, offering hope and opportunity for self-sufficiency. During those years, 1,200-1,300 partner families have been served.
Gardner-Smith, like many former “partners,” credits PIH with where she is today. Now a teacher at Mountain Ridge Middle School, she can still recall what her life skills instructor told her: “This is just a season of your life. This will pass one day. This will not last forever.”
“They did more than put a Band-Aid on my life. They provided for us. They wanted to re-educate me and turn me around,” she said. “At the time, I was too hurt, too proud to see my part in what had happened. They took me in when I was a complete stranger. They saw worth and meaning when I saw none.”
Partners In Housing began as a branch of what is now Catholic Charities of Central Colorado in 1989. In November 1991, they incorporated as an independent non-profit with five donated transitional housing units, and began their self-sufficiency program. During the 1990s, PIH acquired additional transitional housing, placing special emphasis on “scattered site” units for large families, to enhance community integration.
In 1999, PIH expanded into affordable housing for low-income families. In 2003, PIH acquired Colorado House in collaboration with the Rocky Mountain Community Land Trust, adding 30 transitional housing units, and initiated a project to build 10 new homes in four years.
Today, PIH oversees 70 transitional housing units for homeless families, and owns, either independently or in partnership with Greccio Housing and the Rocky Mountain Community Land Trust, 109 units of affordable housing for low-income families.
Bill Barnett, PIH board president, has volunteered with PIH for 10 years, starting as a budget counselor. Barnett said over the years, PIH “has filled a very important need within the homeless community.”
Significantly, PIH has continued to keep their success rate high, moving (65 percent of) “partners” from homelessness to self-sufficiency, he said.
“We were the first group to open low income housing units under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP),” Barnett added.
NSP, he explained, is a federal program to take foreclosed properties and revitalize them, converting them to affordable housing. The result was Bentley Commons, 24 two-bedroom apartments developed in collaboration with Greccio Housing, which provides property management services for PIH, and Rocky Mountain Community Land Trust.
Dick Conn, who directed PIH from 1993 to 2007, is now executive director emeritus and works as a PIH capacity building advisor. Conn replaced Gail Osten, who served as the first PIH executive director concurrently with her position as executive director of Catholic Charities.
When asked about PIH’s accomplishments, Conn said: “There are things I look at with a lot of pride. The first is our increase in capacity. There were 16 housing units when I took over; today there are (179).”
This is significant, he explained, because it was important to “put a dent” in the community’s housing problems to successfully address related problems such as helping the homeless to get and hold jobs, and creating family stability.
“Not only were we able to increase the amount of housing, we had to accompany the growth in housing with growth in case work.”
Conn cited the 2007 move of Partners In Housing to permanent offices at the Myron Stratton Home campus, along with collaborating agencies TESSA, Peak Vista Community Health Centers, and the Early Connections Learning Center, as another important PIH achievement.
Maintaining strong relationship among Partners In Housing, Catholic Charities of Central Colorado and the Diocese of Colorado Springs has also been very important to the sustained success of PIH, he added.
Donnis Martin, PIH community relations and volunteer services manager, said the 20th anniversary is being celebrated with events throughout the year. The annual PIH Casino Night, outreach events for donors and volunteers, and “Ask Events” for potential donors and volunteers include a special focus on 20 years of meeting community housing needs.
“The community needs to understand that family homelessness is invisible homelessness. People don’t see them out on the corners with signs,” Martin said.
There are many causes of homelessness. Medical emergencies draining a family’s resources, women and children escaping an abusive home, job loss preventing rent payments, people moving to Colorado Springs hoping to stay with relatives while seeking a new job and it not working out, and foreclosures on homes whose value has fallen below the mortgages owed on them when it’s time to sell. This year, PIH has experienced a record number of applicants.
Board member Katheryn Chacon, who works as a supervisor at the El Paso County Department of Human Services, said: “It’s definitely a partnership that we in the human services field have with PIH. It’s a great link for our families to obtain stable housing. Not only does PIH provide community activities, but also on-site supportive services to help partners address barriers to self-sufficiency, whether it is mental health issues or the need for employment.”
Current executive director Frank Stampf, who joined PIH in 2000 and took the helm in 2007, reflected on his experience at PIH.
“We’ve learned that homeless families aren’t going to go away,” he said.
The PIH vision has not changed. It is for every family with children to live in adequate housing and achieve its full potential. Stampf wants PIH to continue to provide and improve support to the homeless, helping them to transition to self-sufficiency and stability in housing.
Gardner-Smith’s advice to struggling families is, “hang in there. Do your best every day. Try to keep yours kids’ routines as normal as possible.”
For those facing homelessness, she said: “If you are a family with children and you are doing your best to pull through, contact Partners in Housing. They have their hearts in the right place. They will do whatever they can to help you.”
PIH welcomes donations, both cash and in-kind (e.g., furniture and household items that are in good condition, as well as expendable items like diapers, paper towels, personal toiletry products, etc.). PIH is an Enterprise Zone agency, and any cash donation of $500 or more is eligible for a 25 percent Colorado State Tax Credit. Contact Erin Taylor at 719-325-5835. Also, PIH needs volunteers for a number of tasks. Readers interested in volunteering can call Donnis Martin at 719-325-5830. For more information, go to www.partnersinhousing.org.
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