New help for homeless families

For the first time in a long time, a new funding source designated to help homeless families has emerged in the state.

The Washington Families Fund, a private-public partnership that has raised more than $4 million, announced the first round of grants Tuesday in Spokane at St. Margaret’s Shelter.

Among the first 10 recipients was a Spokane-based coalition led by an organization for women and families called Transitions.

The grant means that an additional 200 homeless Spokane families will be guaranteed program services over the next 10 years.

“That’s 20 families (a year),” said Julie Dhatt Honekamp, executive director of Transitions mission and service for housing.

What’s significant about this grant is that it guarantees 10 years of support services funding for homeless families, she said.

When these families receive housing vouchers, they’ll also be guaranteed support services. That’s not always the case.

Homeless workers know that it’s often not enough to provide just a house to a homeless family. Additional support services help families learn crucial skills like financial management and upkeep.

Many times the funding for program services, which can include casework, parental training and counseling, is the hardest piece to fund. Generally organizations struggle with annual funding cycles of grants, which can make it hard to plan for future events, said Betsy Lieberman, who’s managing the allocations of the Washington Families Fund.

Bill Gates Sr. of the Gates Foundation, which is one of the private donors to the Washington Families Fund, was on hand Tuesday to help announce the grant.

Afterward Gates said he was touched by the individual success story of Debbie McCollough, 44, who got her life back on track after staying at Transitions a few years ago.

McCollough told the crowd how she fell into street life, lost her children to the state and did what she had to for survival.

In December, she graduated from Gonzaga University and now plans to pursue a master’s degree in social work. She also has her children back.

“I came here, I freaked out a lot. I don’t know how they put up with me, but they did,” McCollough said of her time at Transitions. “Where your money goes works. It really does work.”

The Transitions program was selected from 50 applicants for a $357,080, 10-year grant. Transitions is the lead organization of a coalition comprising Northeast Washington Housing Solutions, Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs and Catholic Charities. The only other Eastern Washington recipient was the Women’s Resource Center of North Central Washington in Wenatchee.

The Washington Families Fund started when the 2004 state Legislature allocated $2 million and another $2 million was raised in private donations from the Gates Foundation, Boeing and the Northwest Foundation. The fund received another $100,000 pledge Tuesday from Boeing. The goal is to raise $5 million by year’s end.

Diane Quast, executive director of Northeast Washington Housing Solutions, said her organization joined the coalition because she knew it would help families receive crucial support services.

Northeast Washington Housing Solutions distributes vouchers to provide assistance to low-income families.

Every little bit helps, Quast said. But the need is so great that in some respects “this (grant) is another drop in the bucket in a time when we see a retraction of funds in many areas.”

Currently, the local housing authority can issue 4,585 vouchers, which average about $370, Quast said. Another 5,500 people are on a waiting list and recently the wait list was closed for the first time in the organization’s history.