There are two aspects to our Make it a Home program. The first assists people moving out of Churches United for the Homeless into independent shelter furnish their new homes. This includes furniture, household items, cleaning products, and toys for children.

The second aspect is a mentoring program. We mentor one family a year. We have mentored two families so far and are looking to bring other faith communities on board. We believe faith communities are uniquely qualified to mentor families as they transition to independent housing. The support families need, obtaining furniture, rides to appointments, help with occasional expenses, are all things churches do to support one another.

We have created a manual for our program with input from experts in the field, including a homeless advocate, a shelter director, a family therapist, several social workers, and several ministers. We believe we have gathered good wisdom for this program.

This month we will present our manual to all of the churches who attend the Churches United for the Homeless annual meeting, inviting them to join us. We would like to follow this up with a training in the Spring. We believe having a date set and inviting churches to a training will encourage them to move on this project. Every faith organization we have spoken to expresses interest in participating in this program. We think they need more incentive to do so.

There is a potential for 60 families to benefit from our program this year.