Homelessness prevention program celebrates five years

By Cherry Sokoloski
North Forty News

Homelessness Prevention Initiative: the title may sound rather bland and faceless, but there are real families--and real children--behind the name and the statistics. HPI is a rental assistance program, and it's been so successful in Fort Collins that the idea is being exported to other communities.

Five years ago, a group of local faith communities set out to study the problem of homelessness in Fort Collins and to do something about it. The program they came up with, the Homelessness Prevention Initiative, keeps families in their homes by helping to pay the rent. In the last five years, 1,800 families have received rental assistance through the program, and advocates say this has saved the community millions of dollars in homelessness services.

"Misconceptions about homeless persons abound," said Valerie Baker-Easley, program director for the HPI. Many consider them to be those who hang out in Old Town or next to the railroad tracks. Those are the chronically homeless, she noted, and just the visible tip of the iceberg.

"Our program helps low-income, working families," she said, and the vast majority are children. These folks are not usually out on the streets, but they are staying with relatives or friends, sleeping in their cars or living in emergency shelters or transitional housing.

In other words, "homeless" means not having a regular residence. According to Baker-Easley, the average homeless person in Colorado is just 9 years old. Poudre School District has identified about 600 children who are considered homeless.

Children are a big reason why the faith communities and others have been working hard to keep families in their homes. For children, a lack of consistency and stability often leads to delayed development, speech and stammering problems and higher rates of other health problems. They lag behind in school because of frequent absences and moves.

Grass-roots beginning

Sister Mary Alice Murphy, a long-time community activist for low-income families, is considered the godmother of the Homelessness Prevention Initiative. Prior to pushing for the HPI, she was a moving force behind The Mission, a shelter for homeless people, and CARE Housing which provides affordable housing for hundreds of low-income people in Fort Collins.

In 2000, Murphy was serving as coordinator of social justice at St. Joseph's Catholic Church and met many people who were in danger of losing their homes because they couldn't pay the rent. The church was able to give only $25 to $50 per family. Murphy realized that no one church or agency could help everyone with their emergency rent needs, so she talked the local Interfaith Council and Fort Collins Urban Pastors into forming the HPI.

"It seemed like if we could keep those families from becoming homeless, it was a far more humane way to do it, rather than trying to get them back in the mainstream later," said Murphy.

To prove the need for HPI, she and others conducted a study of rental assistance requests during a three-month period. According to the study, $340,000 per year was needed at that time to keep Fort Collins families in their homes.

The faith communities came through, raising $63,000 in 2002 and $97,000 in 2003. The project is still funded by area faith communities but also by United Way, Fort Collins, Larimer County and many private foundations and businesses. United Way donates office space for the program. Baker-Easley is the only paid staff, and many volunteers donate time to keep HPI running.

The project has proved to be not only humane but also cost-effective. According to Baker-Easley, the HPI gives families an average of $225 in rental assistance to keep them in their homes. In comparison, she said, once a family is homeless it costs an average of $5,000, or more than 20 times as much, to take care of them and get them back into housing.

"This is an investment in the community," said Baker-Easley. "We will pay for it one way or another, and it's better to do one dollar than 20."

In many cases, said Murphy, a sudden crisis such as divorce, someone becoming ill or the loss of a job brings families to the brink of homelessness, since the rent money is used to handle the crisis. In fact, since the low-income population has little or no financial cushion, the crisis can be as simple as a car needing repairs or high utility bills to pay.

Economic factors in northern Colorado also play a role, explained Baker-Easley. With the high cost of living plus low wages, it can be difficult to make ends meet. Also, the continued high-tech layoffs have put downward pressure on the job market, with more people competing for low- or average-paying jobs.

Assistance criteria

Not everyone qualifies for the rental assistance provided by HPI. Families must live in the greater Fort Collins area, including Wellington, LaPorte and Bellvue. They must come up with half the needed rent themselves, and a family may be helped only once in a 12-month period. "We want to give them a leg up, not a handout," said Baker-Easley.

The HPI gave rental assistance to 590 families in 2005 alone. Project officials estimate that, over the past five years, the program has saved $8.5 million in homelessness services such as shelter costs, agency services, food boxes, emergency room medical care and the costs to secure new housing.

HPI did a follow-up study recently to see how past clients were faring. The organization was able to reach 75 percent of the clients and found that 83 percent were still in the housing for which they received assistance. Ten percent had moved into more affordable housing, and 7 percent had moved in with relatives.

"What we were particularly pleased to see," said Baker-Easley, "was that all of these clients had a place to live and no one was on the streets."

Murphy sees the HPI as a successful, homegrown program. "The money is helping someone in the community," she noted.

People needing rental assistance from HPI may apply at three sites, St. Joseph's, St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church and Plymouth Congregational Church. For more information about the program, call 407-7021.