[00:00:00] Speaker A: The Journey Hometown Journal.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: The churches also provide a meal for the families every night, and so they get to meet a wide variety of the congregants from whichever congregation that we're at that week.
[00:00:13] Speaker C: Welcome to the Hometown Journal. I'm Mark Edwards. This morning we're going to look at an organization that is addressing the issue of homelessness in the greater Roanoke area. The organization is called Family Promise of Greater Roanoke, and the executive director is Amy Morgan. Amy, thank you for joining us today. Tell us a little bit about your background and how that led you to working with Family Promise.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Well, I have had about 20 years of experience in government and nonprofit management and working with a bunch of different programs. I have worked with a lot with kids that were involved in the juvenile justice system and then also was VP of programs for Feeding Southwest Virginia. And then more recently, I was the operations director for Mill Mountain Zoo. So I have a lot of experience doing both the programmatic and kind of business side of programs.
[00:01:10] Speaker D: Well, tell me a little bit about, I guess, the history of Family Promise, what the organization is all about.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Sure. Family promise started in 1998 here in Roanoke with a group of two or three church members who saw a need for working directly with homeless families in the Roanoke Valley.
Family Promise is a national organization, and we are an affiliate of that organization. Originally it was called the Interfaith Hospitality Network.
And so the idea for that is that we work with a close group of currently 20 congregations that our different types of Christian as well as Jewish congregations to provide shelter for families that are currently experiencing homelessness and then provide case management to get them into housing at a faster rate than they may if they're just staying in a traditional shelter.
[00:02:12] Speaker D: Okay, what's the homeless situation like in the greater Roanoke area?
[00:02:19] Speaker B: We're currently waiting on the newest numbers to come out from this year's point in time count.
The one thing we do know is that between 23 and 24, there is like a 200% increase in homeless families.
So what we are seeing is a greater number of families that are homeless and not just individuals, which is what we have mostly seen in the past. And so that makes our program very important because we do work with families.
[00:02:48] Speaker D: How does somebody get connected with the organization and then be able to get into the temporary shelter and then ultimately working toward a more stable home situation for their family?
[00:03:03] Speaker B: A lot of our referrals come. Word of mouth are made by other people in the community who are aware of our program. So when we do have openings, we do reach out to the Domestic violence shelters and the other homeless shelter in the area to let people know that there is availability.
We're always taking calls for referrals and putting people on a wait list. And then when we can, we go ahead and screen them and start working towards getting them into shelter.
[00:03:32] Speaker D: Tell us a little bit about the facility there in Roanoke as far as what is provided, what's available to a family that needs to get into a temporary housing situation.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Sure. We have a family center in Northwest Roanoke that is basically a day center. So we do have computers for people to work on things like resume building and applying for jobs, things like that. We work with them on making sure that they have all proper identification or things that they would need to either enroll their children in school or to find jobs for themselves and help them work with a budget for what they're bringing in currently and what they would need to get housing. And once we feel like they're stable enough for housing, then we go ahead and start working with them on finding that housing for that family. And that is usually through our partners with the housing authority and other landlords that we know will work with families that are low income.
[00:04:35] Speaker C: That is Amy Morgan, the executive director of Family Promise of Greater Roanoke. Their website is Family Promise Roanoke.
And when we come back, we'll learn more about how they are transforming the lives of families experiencing homelessness.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: It's good for your family.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: That's a big thing too. Oh, yeah, I have kids.
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Now back to more of the journey Hometown Journal.
[00:05:12] Speaker C: Mark Edwards, back with you on the Hometown Journal along with our guest, Amy Morgan. Amy is the executive director of Family Promise of Greater Roanoke. Before the break, Amy, you were kind of sharing how the organization works with church communities to provide housing, provide shelter in a temporary situation for people that are homeless.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: As far as staying, we have a rotational model of shelter. So we have about half of our congregations are able to house families in their congregation.
And so they stay there for one week at a time and then they rotate into the next congregation.
So they're not actually sleeping here at the shelter. We use our partner churches for that.
[00:06:00] Speaker C: So are people staying at the churches or are they in the congregants homes?
[00:06:05] Speaker B: They actually stay at the place of.
[00:06:08] Speaker D: Worship at the church facility.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: Okay, yeah. Okay, yeah. So, but what it does mean is that they get to be actively involved with the churches, also provide a meal for the families every night. And so they get to meet a wide variety of the congregants from, you know, whichever congregation that we're at that week who may be able to help them with something like finding a job or has a lead on childcare, you know, things like that, or just able to provide a listening ear or support through what they're going through and just listening to what they have to say and creating some of those community bonds that a lot of times families are lacking that come into shelter.
[00:06:51] Speaker D: Is there like a time limit that they can stay in that rotation or then they have to come out of that and come back in? How does that work?
[00:07:00] Speaker B: We try to have Everybody housed within 60 days.
Sometimes that's very easy to do and it's not a problem.
Other times it's not as easy to do. Part of that depends on family size. When we have larger families, they're a lot harder to place. Finding a home that's or an apartment that's large enough, there's not enough three bedroom apartments and housing for a lot of these families. So then we work with them. It just really depends on as long as they're doing everything that we are asking of them and they're working and saving their money and things like that, or paying off debt, taking care of everything we can, we'll continue to work with them until we can get them.
[00:07:43] Speaker D: Into a house while they're in the temporary housing, what type of additional programs are available to them, Whether that's programs that Family Promise offers or working with.
[00:07:56] Speaker C: Other partners in the community.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: The other program Family Promise offer are for people who have not hit the level of needing shelter yet. So it's more of prevention or diversion from shelter.
But while they're here, we do offer opportunities for them to do some classes and skill building sessions on things like budgeting or financial planning, things like that. We also work very closely with a lot of different organizations in the family. We do work with front of coordinated entry and have a lot of our families go ahead and go through that assessment as well to see if there's other services or funding they may be available for that we're not aware of that can be accessed through the Council of Community Services and the continuum of care process and just looking at who else we can work with. So we'll work with whoever we need to work with to help them get what they need.
[00:08:54] Speaker C: Today on the Hometown Journal, we're talking with Amy Morgan, the executive director of Family Promise of Greater Roanoke. And if you're a church or an individual interested in finding out more about Family Promise and the work they are doing to alleviate homelessness in the area, you can visit their website. It's familypromiseroanoke.org we'll be back with the Hometown Journal in a minute.
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[00:09:38] Speaker D: Hometown Journal, Mark Edwards back with you.
[00:09:40] Speaker C: Along with our guest, Amy Morgan, the executive director of Family Promise of Greater Roanoke. And Family Promise has as its purpose, as its mission to help families that are homeless find not only temporary housing, but permanent housing as well. Amy, in the couple of minutes that we have left in the program, I wanted to give you an opportunity to speak to somebody that may be listening and is interested in volunteering with Family Promise.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: We always have volunteer needs. We're also currently looking for some new congregations that may be willing to join us to help support congregations that may be hosting families and helping with providing the meals or staying overnight. We're inclusive of all types of religious organizations. We have had Muslim and Hindu congregations in the past. You know, providing meals and staying overnight is always greatly appreciated.
And then we also have opportunities at the center from time to time where we need people who could help somebody do a job, resume or help somebody who's really having difficulty with a budget and can spend a little bit more time with them one on one on showing them how to create that.
So there's always a lot of opportunities for volunteering with us.
The other thing I would mention is that we do have our prevention and diversion programs. We recently got a grant from Clayton Homes where we are going to be able to use that for people who are at risk of coming into shelter, which means that they are currently homeless but they're not staying in another shelter. So they may be staying in a car with a family member completely unsheltered and are looking for help to get into a house or an apartment. And so we would can assist with reasons why they're not able to do that with some of the case management we do with our shelter guests without bringing them into shelter and help get them set up in a home before it gets to a point. That that they absolutely have to come into shelter.
[00:11:50] Speaker C: Well, hopefully today you have learned a little bit more about Family Promise of Greater Roanoke and their mission to reach the homeless people, the homeless families in the region and help them get into not only just temporary housing, but permanent housing as well. If you would like to find out more about Family Promise, you can do that by going to their website. That's familypromiseroanoke.org Familypromiseroanoke.org I'm Mark Edwards. And our thanks again to our special guest, Amy Morgan, the executive director of Family Promise of Greater Roanoke. And thank you for joining us for the Hometown Journal.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: You've been listening to the Journey Hometown Journal. If you're a part of an organization or know of one in the communities we serve and would like to be considered as a guest, please make your
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