Press Room

A Minnesota program offers a model for how to meet the challenges of long-term homelessness.

Last year, when the city of Raleigh, N.C., partnered with Wake County to announce a new program to help homeless families find housing, officials knew demand would be high. But the inundation of requests that poured in was shocking. At one of the two nonprofits administering the program, the call volume over the first weekend literally shut down the phone system, which maxed out at 999 voicemails. "They were flooded and had to shut down almost immediately, because they were so overwhelmed" says Joe Rappl, Raleigh's special housing coordinator.

Three smart investments by the Washington State Legislature since 2004 have helped families in 15 counties end homelessness. Pummeled state lawmakers wrestling with a tight economy, bleak revenue projections and grim budget choices rightly agonize about every penny spent. They can confidently renew a $6 million appropriation for Washington Families Fund, an innovative and effective public-private partnership.

According to the VA, as of 2009, more than 3,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans had sought housing assistance in the past four years, up from 1,800 in 2008. And the number of female veterans who are homeless has doubled in the past decade.

The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on Thursday passed a bill that, if signed into law, could create job opportunities and better housing for homeless veterans, particularly women and veterans with families. With two amendments by Sen. Jon Tester, these services would be delivered to the struggling veterans in Montana and across rural America.

More and more Twin Cities families are spending a lot of their income on housing, and that's forcing some of them out of their homes. There's stimulus money designed to help. Millions of dollars came to the state late last year to pull some families back from homelessness, or keep them in their homes. The idea is to pay the families' rent for one or two months, giving them a one-time chance to pay other bills, build up cash, or look for work. For some, a couple of months help isn't enough.

In January 2010, Building Changes released a report documenting five years of outcomes for homeless families served by the Washington Families Fund. The Fund supports innovative programs around affordable housing paired with support services, such as employment training and education; children’s programs; parenting classes; and financial planning that helps families stabilize their lives and become self-sufficient.

The United Way of Greater Attleboro and Taunton won a $350,000 grant from the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Foundation to help the cities of Attleboro, Taunton, Fall River and New Bedford and surrounding towns to help "divert, prevent and eliminate homelessness and housing insecurities for individuals and families."

The Valley of the Sun United Way is partnering with the Arizona Department of Health Services and the city of Tempe on a pilot project that will provide 35 affordable housing units to people who have been homeless for more than a year.

The Kitchen is one of the newest pieces of an unusual culinary endeavor that the Boston-based Melville Charitable Trust is trying here as part of its mission to address homelessness. The effort began nearly three years ago with Firebox, a farm-to-table restaurant. It’s all housed at Billings Forge, a complex of rehabilitated industrial buildings with 98 units of mixed-income housing in Frog Hollow, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, barely two blocks from the Capitol. The Melville Trust bought the complex for $5 million in 2005. Since then, its web of integrated food operations has become the cornerstone of Melville’s strategy to bring services, jobs and business to Frog Hollow.