Harvest House award to fuel rapid re-housing of homeless

Editor's Note: This post is part of a series from exemplary Recoding Organizational DNA participants who were honored with a one-time ESO Award from The Patterson Foundation. 

At the culmination of Recoding Organizational DNA, a six-month series of intensive workshops that brought together leaders and representatives of service agencies throughout Sarasota County, Harvest House Transitional Centers was presented with an ESO Award from The Patterson Foundation for $20,000. The one-time gift was presented to Harvest House in recognition of our organization’s commitment to Dr. Robert Marbut’s 12-Point Plan to resolve homelessness in our region. Thanks to a private donor, we were able to secure a matching gift for our ESO Award, which will in total contribute $40,000 to our initiative!

At Harvest House, we strive to make our programs engaging for clients, focusing on long-term outcomes and overall improvement of quality of life. For many of those we serve, the need is an initial helping hand and light case management to stabilize their situation – putting them on a path toward financial independence and stability.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness describes the concept of rapid re-housing as an essential tool for a community’s response to homelessness. Rapid re-housing helps communities decrease the number of people experiencing homelessness and the amount of time households spend homeless by placing priority on moving families and individuals into permanent housing as quickly as possible, ideally within 30 days of a client becoming homeless.

Harvest House will be appropriating our ESO Award and the matching gift from our private donor to fund rapid re-housing programs for homeless and at-risk families who are referred to the Family Haven Alliance. The use of these funds will be determined on a case-by-case basis after an initial assessment of the client’s current situation and after it has been decided that rapid re-housing, rather than time spent in the Haven or in short-term transitional housing, would best benefit the client.

• Rapid re-housing allows Harvest House to stop homelessness in its tracks for families who are already homeless by immediately giving them a place to live and engaging them in case management and other services.

• Using these funds for families who come through the Family Haven Alliance creates a system-centric approach – serving even those families who did not come directly to Harvest House for help.

• The sooner we get families into a home, the less long-term damage is done to the family unit and the easier it is to break the cycle that causes homelessness.

The amount of funds to be expended on behalf of each client will be based on client needs but will solely be used for rental assistance, housing relocation, stabilization services, including credit counseling, security/utility deposits, utility payments, moving costs and required case management.

Providing rapid re-housing assistance for homeless families of our community allows for greater long-term stability and increased positive outcomes.