House on the Hill does two things: they provide housing and food to low-income families and individuals in our community. Currently, their monthly impact reaches close to 600 households.
When people think about unhoused or homeless people, most think of the stereotypical person on the street. Not every unhoused person is living on the street. The ones we don’t see are sleeping on a friend’s couch, in a borrowed room, in a hotel, or possibly sleeping in their car. The most vulnerable in our community are children. One in five school-age children is either living with food insecurity or housing insecurity or is unhoused. One in five children live in these struggles. This is what poverty looks like within our community.
This coming year House on the Hill will expand The Guesthouse Program from one unit to a total of ten units. This program will house up to 15 households in any two-year period and upwards of 120 people. To meet the growing need of families, they are adding an emergency housing component to The Guesthouse Program. The emergency Guesthouse Program is temporary housing to allow families like Faith’s to stabilize and find employment or housing. Using camper trailers with sleeping space for eight, a kitchenette with a microwave and refrigerator to reduce the risk of fire, and a sitting area with heating and air, we will house families temporarily in local campgrounds. The residents have access to restrooms, showers and laundry facilities in the campground. The same connection to our community partners will be available to emergency Guesthouse residents. This program can house up to 120 households and upwards of 920 people over the next two-year period. In total The Guesthouse Program can house close to 1100 people. This means 135 families that don’t have to sleep in a tent, or jump from parking lot to parking lot sleeping in their car, or finding a place on the street each night
House on the Hill programs work to encourage Hope. Hope is also a mom. She and her four school-age children were the pilot family in our Guesthouse Program this year. She came to House on the Hill with no money of her own, no work history during the last 12 years, no vehicle, and no means to acquire housing. In the first year in the Guesthouse Program… mom got a job and started supporting her family and the kids went from truant to near perfect attendance and made the A/B Honor Roll at school.
Sponsoring a household with House on the Hill means providing for families in need like Hope’s, making sure they have safe, affordable housing and food to put on the table. While the residents in the program pay a portion of their own expenses, the support you provide helps makes up the difference. Join the Sponsorship Program today!
-submitted by House on the Hill
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