Family Promise
FROM THE RECTOR
When I lived and worked in Montgomery, Alabama, I had the opportunity to participate in Family Promise—a program designed to support families who are experiencing homelessness. Our congregation was one of about a dozen in the community that opened their church for one week at a time to allow families in the program to spend the night in its building. It remains among the most direct, tangible, and personal ways that I have engaged in outreach, and I am delighted that local leaders are working to bring Family Promise to Fayetteville.
The vision behind the organization is simple and direct—ending family homelessness—but the work needed to accomplish it is multilayered and tireless. Did you know that, at the end of last year, Fayetteville Public Schools reported 254 students who were experiencing homelessness? In Springdale, that number was 767. In Rogers, it was 352. In Bentonville, it was 486. (Read more here.)
Where do those families spend the night? Many of them sleep on couches or floors in the homes of friends or relatives. Some stay in an RV, a tent, or in their car. A few may depend on shelters, but there are no homeless facilities in our area that are designed for families. Because of that, those families occasionally stay in hotel rooms, but the high expense makes that a temporary option that quickly drains the financial resources that they need for other things like clothing, food, and healthcare.
Family Promise helps families that do not have a permanent place to live by giving them a secure and reliable place to stay and supporting them with job training and the other resources that they need to transition to permanent housing. Instead of splitting them up into separate shelters, Family Promise allows the members of a family to stay together at night. Each morning, while the children go to school, the adults either go to work or to a day center, where they are supported in their search for employment. In the evening, they return to do the same things that most of our families take for granted every night—eat and play and relax together.
Back in Montgomery, the host churches housed the families at night, but, since then, many local affiliates of Family Promise have moved from a rotational housing model to a fixed approach. Instead of bouncing from one congregation to another each week, families are given a single place to stay for their duration in the program, and local volunteers come to the residential center to provide meals and other support. One of the things I loved about Family Promise in Montgomery was being able to welcome families into our church, share a meal together, and spend the night down the hall from them as an overnight host just in case any problems came up. The fixed approach is less disruptive to families, many of which have experienced trauma, and, although we have not decided on which approach to take, I look forward to learning new ways to offer support to families that participate in the program.
Although a national organization, each local affiliate articulates its own mission in a way that addresses the needs of its specific context. Back in Montgomery, the focus was on helping families that could transition to permanent housing within six months—a lofty but realistic goal when given the right support. The process of defining what Family Promise will look like in northwest Arkansas has only just begun, but I trust that it will deliver the same sort of compassionate results that we witnessed in Alabama.
A group of interested people from St. Paul’s and several other churches, organizations, and agencies have begun making plans to bring Family Promise to our community. The vestry voted last week to give $1000 to help with that effort. Right now, we are seeking non-profit status, developing a communication strategy, recruiting additional congregations, and raising funds for the program. We need $50,000 for our initial organizational efforts, and we are over halfway to that first fundraising goal. Soon, we will start looking for a building for a day center, a van for reliable transportation, and long-term funding sources.
We are about twelve months away from launching Family Promise in this community, and I think it will be a very good thing for Fayetteville and for our congregation. Stay tuned for ways that you can be a part of this effort to end family homelessness in northwest Arkansas, and pray each day for a end to homelessness and poverty in our area and throughout the world.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan D. Garner