Desks sit inside the Mullen-Polk Foundation's Family Resource Center at the nonprofit headquarters in downtown Vancouver. The center will help connect individuals and families to resources throughout the community to help get their basic needs met. (Photos by Taylor Balkom/The Columbian)Photo Gallery
“Being part of giving back is kind of the biggest thing for me,” said Linda Weems, founder and executive director of the Mullen-Polk Foundation.
Weems started the local nonprofit in 2015, with a focus on providing services for children and families in the foster care system. The foundation has always worked to provide resources to help as many families as possible, according to Weems. The new Family Resource Center will help expand services and support for anyone in the community, not just those in foster care.
“We will work with families to meet their needs,” said Nicola Bintz, the licensing and compliance manager at the Mullen-Polk Foundation. “It’s for anyone who walks through the door and needs help.”
The Mullen-Polk Foundation Family Resource Center started thanks to a $200,000 Washington Family Resource Center Program Grant funded by the Washington State Department of Commerce. That grant will help fund two resource specialist positions.
Resource specialists at the Mullen-Polk Foundation Family Resource Center will help connect individuals to a wide array of resources including: assistance applying to programs like SNAP or TANF; access to school supplies and scholarship application support; connections to local food banks; access to clothing vouchers and gas cards; connection to health and mental health services; financial literacy classes; parenting classes; and more — you name it and the organization will do everything in its power to make it happen, according to Bintz.
“We draw on connections we have to open the doors for others,” Bintz said. “Tell us what you need — if we don’t have a connection to it, we’ll get one.”
The Mullen-Polk Foundation staff recently completed training and licensing for the Homeless Prevention Diversion Fund through A Way Home Washington. The fund works to provide flexible payments to young people ages 12 to 24 who are experiencing homelessness or are currently facing homelessness within the next 30 days, according to Weems.
Staff are able to preform an intake evaluation and refer individuals to the fund. The Homelessness Prevention Diversion Fund will help pay for things that eliminate a young person’s housing crisis such as: creating a new opportunity for housing, making existing housing safer, temporarily housing a client, and more, according to a flyer about the program.
Qualifying youth ages 12 to 24 are unaccompanied or at imminent risk of being unaccompanied and experiencing a housing crisis, according to the flyer. This can include being homeless, staying in a shelter, in an unstable living situation, in an unsafe living situation or at risk of becoming homeless.
Resource specialists at the Mullen-Polk Foundation Family Resource Center will be able to connect young people to this program, while also assisting with other needs of any individual or family from the community.
The foundation always accepts donations to support its work and further its community impact — both financial as well as supplies such as hygiene products, diapers, clothes and more.
“(We accept) anything you think a family in need could use,” Bintz said.
The Mullen-Polk Foundation Family Resource Center is in Vancouver at 1104 Main St., Suite M110. The center is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
