|
|
IHN’s mission is to serve homeless families by uniting faith
community volunteers and local agencies in a cooperative effort to
provide shelter, meals, and compassionate ongoing assistance.
IHN
PROGRAM OBJECTIVES:
-
Provide shelter, meals and case
management for
homeless families
-
Assist families in finding a home
-
Refer homeless families to
appropriate agencies for job training/retraining and family
services
-
Increase volunteerism and
advocacy to meet the needs of low income and homeless families
-
Provide support during the
housing crisis and during the post-placement period of
transition to self-sufficiency
HOW THE COMMUNITY BENEFITS
Since IHN began
providing emergency shelter for families in Fort Wayne in 2000, we
have served over 800 individuals with the demand for our services
growing each year. Of those, over 375 were children under the age
of 18. On average, 79% of families served by IHN and 100% of those
who have stayed in the program for a minimum of 45 days, transition
to stable housing and employment after leaving our program. All
participants receive income, education and/or job counseling and
other supportive services to help them return to self-sufficiency.
The IHN model has proven to be an innovative and effective program
in which the focus is working with trained volunteers and
professional staff as well as creating collaborations with other
social service providers. In addition to the participating
congregations that comprise our local network, IHN works closely
with numerous social service agencies. Families are often first
referred to IHN by First Call For Help, other social service
agencies and shelters, congregations and their volunteers, and by
word of mouth. Once a family is settled in at IHN, we continue to
work closely with local agencies to ensure that guests receive the
appropriate services to best meet their specific needs. Area
agencies that IHN collaborates with include: Vincent House, First
Call For Help, Matthew 25, The Allen County Housing Consortium,
Division of Family & Children, HANDS, CANI, NE Regional Homeless
Task Force, Wayne Township Trustee Office, Fort Wayne Community
Schools Homeless Team, East Wayne Street Center, Associated Churches
Food Bank, Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services and other
agencies that serve homeless and “working poor” families. By
partnering with existing agencies and trained volunteers, IHN
reduces the overall cost to the community-at-large.
ADAPTING TO THE CHANGING NEEDS OF THE
HOMELESS
IHN
is dedicated to providing the most effective services possible to
help homeless families deal with their housing crisis and movement
toward self-sufficiency consistent with sound financial
stewardship. Because of this mission, we need to respond to our
changing environment even if such changes may cause us to redo core
components of our program. This
adaptation is coming about due to the move taking place later on
this year/early next year.
Since 2006, we have documented that the
homeless population we serve is coming to us with more needs and
fewer internal and external resources than ever before. In short,
both our children and adults need more attention to educational,
emotional and life skills enhancement than we can provide with our
current paradigm of housing families in churches. Because families
must prepare to leave, then be transported to the church and once
there get settled in, we lose approximately 2-3 hours a day of
potential program time. In addition, the reduced stress of not
having to move twice a day can provide our families a much needed a
sense of well-being. This will increase their physical and
emotional energy which will allow us to schedule evening classes
that address their special needs. This crucial programming is not
possible with our current model. The church volunteers will
continue to serve our families as before with the change being that
they will perform their duties in a centralized facility and will no
longer be required to spend the night at their church with our
families. IHN will employ second and third shift staff members to
insure that professional supervisory services are provided around
the clock. A number of IHN affiliates throughout the nation have
converted to an on-site shelter. The empirical evidence indicates
that the homeless crisis for these families is more effectively
addressed by the caring community of trained volunteers and staff at
one central location. The Board of Directors and staff unanimously
agree that by providing housing on site we will be able to move our
residents much further along the continuum of self-sufficiency. In
assisting these families who have been challenged more than ever
before to attain a productive and satisfying life, IHN will serve
our mission better as well as the community,
as families move forward to self-sufficiency.
|
