Family Promise new resource for homeless in Clark County

Several churches are launching a local affiliate of Family Promise, a national nonprofit that helps families out of homelessness through case management and a system of overnight shelters.

Families referred by Council for the Homeless to Family Promise of Clark County would stay a week at a time at local churches, and receive services and support at a day center.

The ecumenical nonprofit — which formed in December 2016, according to the Secretary of State’s Office — looks to start its program before the cold winter weather sets in, said Katherine Radeka, who heads the communications committee. Fourteen people would be served at any given time, making it an intimate program specific to homeless families with children.

According to the national Family Promise, more than 82 percent of the families served find housing in less than nine weeks. Each family is different, though, in terms of how much support they’d need and how long they’d participate in the program, Radeka said. It depends on their specific barriers to housing. There are nearby Family Promise affiliates in Longview, Beaverton, Ore., Tigard, Ore., and Hillsboro, Ore.

Radeka attends St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Camas, one of the churches supporting Family Promise of Clark County. The organization is trying to recruit at least 13 churches to host families for a week at a time, about four times per year. Other churches would support the organization by providing volunteers and meals.

Family Promise of Clark County is negotiating with a church to serve as a permanent day center where younger children and jobless adults would spend their days. Even though the families are going to different churches every week, the day center is their home base and a place of stability, Radeka said. Participants would be able to take showers, do laundry, get mail and have a place to recreate. It would also serve as the organization’s headquarters. After the day center location is secured, Family Promise of Clark County plans to hire a paid, full-time executive director to run the program and work with families.

To get everything up and running, the national organization advised its Clark County counterpart to raise about $150,000 for its first-year budget. Radeka said they’re about halfway to that goal, which recently got a major boost from The Ed and Dollie Lynch Fund, with a $37,500 matching grant.

“We’ve been very blessed by the support we’ve received so far,” Radeka said.

Family Promise of Clark County is holding a fundraiser at East Woods Presbyterian Church on Saturday and plans to use Give More 24!, Southwest Washington’s unofficial giving holiday, as its first major public fundraiser. Give More 24! is set for Sept. 20.

Radeka said the overall goal is to address the root causes of homelessness and work intensely with a small group of families to get them housed. It’s an additional resource on top of the Winter Hospitality Overflow shelter system, another ecumenical response to the growing local issue of homelessness that’s been around since 2003. SafePark allows homeless people to stay overnight in their cars in designated church parking lots.

This year’s annual Point in Time count, a census of the homeless population, showed a 39 percent increase in the number of people living outside and an overall 6 percent increase that includes people staying in shelters and transitional housing.

For church members, Radeka said, Family Promise of Clark County is an opportunity to have a different relationship with the homeless population, to hear their stories and challenges, and to be their neighbor.