TO:               Families Together Supporters

FROM:           Lisa Rowe, Executive Director 

DATE:           March 17, 2020

RE:               COVID-19

Families Together has been closely monitoring the challenges posed by the rising number of confirmed cases of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the U.S. and, in particular, Wake County. We are collaborating intensively with our partner agencies and participating in daily community-wide conference calls to ensure a well-coordinated emergency response for families experiencing homelessness.

First and foremost, Families Together will follow guidance from the CDC as well as state and local public health officials (NC DHHS and Wake County Government).  See below links:

Wake County COVID-19 Information 

NC DHHS COVID-19 Response

CDC COVID-19 Updates

We aim to access reliable and relevant information so we can take precautions and take appropriate action, not panic.

Last week, we put in place a Families Together Contingency Plan for Coronavirus (COVID-19) and yesterday we moved into Phase II – Heightened Phase. The plan enumerates specific steps to help protect the health and well-being of the families we serve, our staff, our volunteers and other stakeholders. These include utilizing phone and digital contact with families in our program as much as possible, cancellation of client workshops and volunteer events, and teleworking of our staff team as much as possible.  Provisions have been made to equip staff with the tech support and equipment they need to work from home. 

A letter to families in our program announcing changes in how we will be communicating with them is being delivered today. It includes a listing of direct phone numbers to each of our nine Program Team members (including myself) along with specific areas of concern we are monitoring (i.e. need for assistance obtaining COVID-19 testing and job loss due to the virus). 

In the event that there is a more widespread outbreak, we will continue to pay employees, including those who are not salaried, so as to encourage them to remain at home caring for themselves and their family without worry of losing wages.  

If we close our office due to staff shortages or public request, we will let our stakeholders know and will make every effort to continue programs and services as best we can.  We hope that all are kept safe and remain healthy as we work together to address this public health challenge.  

Many of you have been in touch with offers of help and we are grateful for the donations of food, supplies, and financial support. We will be following up with additional ways you can support families experiencing homelessness through our emergency response efforts.

In Wake County, approximately 16 children become homeless every day - an increase of 40% in just three years.

December 3rd is a great day to give to Families Together because you can TRIPLE the value of your donation with matching dollars. Together, we can help more children and their families have a warm bed to sleep in and a stable roof overhead.

Check out a few examples of the life-changing difference you can make with a triple-impact match:

$30 can become $90: Provides a Welcome Basket of personal hygiene and household cleaning supplies for a family moving out of homelessness.

$50 can become $150: Gives 6 children their first nights sleeping in their own beds.

$100 can become $300: Ensures 6 weeks of healthy snacks for children in our program.

$200 can become $600: Covers a month of utilities for 3 families coming out of homelessness

$500 can become $1,500: Provides short-term housing for 4 families at risk of separation in shelters.

$1,000 can become $3,000: Covers rental deposits for 3 families transitioning from homelessness.

Thank you for considering. We would be grateful for your gift of any amount!

We’d like to share an update on Amber, whose story was covered by WRAL in July. You may remember that Amber worked full-time and lived with her four kids and a therapy dog in a local motel. After five months in the motel and dedicated housing search as well as advocacy from the Families Together team for the last several months, Amber finally signed a lease to a place where she and her family can make a home. Our Mentor Advocates will continue to work with her for up to a year to help ensure her long-term housing success.

In the Raleigh/Wake rental market, the challenge of finding affordable housing for hourly wage workers - even with a voucher - is enormous. Families Together is dedicated to ensuring that children in our community never have to wonder where they're going to sleep at night.

Your individual donations and church support makes this kind of life-changing event possible and helped make Amber’s dream of having a home a reality. 

When Activate Good asks their volunteers to show their super power, they really come through! This month Activate Good #DoGooders rallied in just a few days to help Families Together remove flooring due to damage and paint an entire Short-term Housing apartment in just one day. Oh, and did we mention, that the A/C was out too.

Despite the hard work in the sweltering heat 13 dedicated volunteers, some strangers and some new to volunteering, laughed and told stories. They helped each other out and all around had FUN!

Activate Good Board Member and project leader Bill Halvorsen said it best: “Did you hear complaining? No, you heard strangers telling stories, you heard friends being made. You saw a place where a family will come and feel safe and secure being formed.”

This is why we love our volunteers! Always happy to do good. Thanks #DoGooders!

Wake County Public Schools informed Families Together last week that 929 students lived in motels at some point in the 18-19 school year. That's up from 831 in the previous year and about 250 five years ago. Families Together has been working for over a year to develop a new Affordable Housing project with a range of housing interventions that will help the increasing number of families living in area motels. 

New grants from two long-time partners along with funds from our spring campaign have provided the initial seed money to launch our Affordable Housing Project. We’re grateful to the John Rex Endowment (JRE) and United Way of the Greater Triangle (UWGT) for stepping up with significant investments in this critical work. JRE awarded Families Together a $600,000 grant over three years and UWGT granted $150,000 with the possibility for renewal next year. 

A brief summary of our plans can be found here. If you have questions, ideas or would like to learn more, please get in touch by contacting jennifer@familiestogethernc.org.

An important segment, featuring Families Together, on the increasing number of Wake families living in motels due to lack of affordable housing aired on WRAL last week. Amber, who lives with her four children in a single low-cost motel room, shares her story and Lisa Rowe, Families Together Executive Director, speaks more broadly on the challenges many more families like Amber’s face in finding safe, affordable, dignified housing.

Since its airing, we've received several offers of support for Amber's family and other families in our program (including housing and summer camps). We are following up on all of them now to help Amber’s family and more like hers move into safe, affordable, dignified housing.

Living in a motel brings its own set of challenges that prevent people from obtaining stable housing. That's why in 2016 we partnered with other local organizations to specifically target this unique population of families through the More Than a Roof Collaborative. Since its inception MTAR has successfully housed over thirty Wake County families with young children. Recently, Mutual of America held a luncheon at The State Club to honor the wonderful people who worked so hard to make MTAR a success. We were joined by 80 guests from across the community including Board members, former Board members, donors, member churches, corporate partners, foundation partners and elected officials. It was wonderful to receive the recognition along with our partners in the MTAR collaborative -- Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Raleigh, Learning Together, The Salvation Army of Wake County, and Triangle Literacy Council. The original inspiration for the collaborative and our primary funding partner was the United Way of the Greater Triangle which made so much of our success for families in need possible over the last three years. Special thanks to the Mutual of America Foundation for organizing their annual nationwide Community Partnership Award and for shining a spotlight on effective collaborative efforts like ours. To top off the event, Mutual of America presented Families Together with a $25,000 contribution. This will make a tremendous difference as we expand our work to move more children and families from low-cost motels to safe, dignified homes.     

Jackie and her two children were living in a low-cost motel for over a year when she came to Families Together. Jackie worked hard, paid her bills and took good care of her children but she didn’t have the means to save enough for the rental deposits necessary to move her family into an apartment. When she attended one of our workshops she was connected to our community partner Habitat for Humanity. Soon we discovered she was eligible to own a Habitat home. First we moved Jackie and her kids into a unit in our short-term housing so she could save the cost of the nightly motel bill while she fulfilled Habitat’s sweat equity requirement. This spring Jackie will be the proud owner of her own home. Her children will have their own beds, a safe place to play outside and the stability of a home. It’s a dream that wasn’t possible just a few months ago.

At school, I was stressed about how to hide my homelessness and, when I wasn’t at school, I was stressed about how to satisfy at least my immediate needs”

Latte Harris is a teen from Vancouver, Washington who recently wrote a blog for HomeRoom, the Department of Education’s blog. Latte provided important insights about what it's like to experience homelessness while trying to achieve her educational goals.

She said, “Have you wondered what being homeless is like? Being homeless is like driving a car with three wheels. You don’t have all the tools you need to succeed. While other cars zip past you, hope begins to dissipate with every passing mile. It is like living two different lives. At school, I was stressed about how to hide my homelessness and, when I wasn’t at school, I was stressed about how to satisfy at least my immediate needs”

Latte overcame tremendous obstacles and was able to graduate high school and become the first person in her family to attend college. Latte is more the exception than the rule as students who are homeless drop out at a much higher rate than students with stable homes.

The Department of Education explains one challenge of being homeless while attending school stating, “Homeless students experience greater school mobility than their non-homeless peers. School mobility can cause interruptions to a child’s education and is associated with lower school achievement and increased risk of dropping out of school.”

Getting a good education is critical to breaking the cycle of poverty that many homeless students grow up in but homelessness in and of itself prevents many students from being successful in school. It’s a cycle that many students can’t break, and then pass down to the future generations.

Families Together’s core model is designed to move families with children from homelessness to stable homes as quickly as possible. By doing so, we reduce the likelihood of student absenteeism and increase the chances of academic achievement. Ultimately we work to break the cycle of homelessness, build family cohesion, and give children the opportunity to thrive.

Zillow recently hosted a round-table discussion in Washington, D.C. based on this new research. Their research reported that “Communities where people spend more than 32 percent of their income on rent can expect a more rapid increase in homelessness”. They further noted, “This research demonstrates that the homeless population climbs faster when rent affordability – the share of income people spend on rent – crosses certain thresholds.”

Recent reports show that in Raleigh a household must earn about $20 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment and not spend more than 30% of their income on rent. The News & Observer’s Henry Gargan reported that 45% of Raleigh renters are spending over 30% of their income on rent making them housing insecure. The research discussed at the DC round-table hosted by Zillow suggests that the increases in housing insecurity that Raleigh is experiencing could portend a more rapid increase in homelessness. The good news is that our Wake County and City of Raleigh officials are working on policies to preserve and create affordable housing. But will that be enough?

About 85% of the families we serve include at least one person that is employed, but on average they earn about half of what is needed to sustain rent payments in Raleigh. These families that are working so hard to get out of homelessness face the hardest uphill climb of all. Some of the ways Families Together is working to anticipate and address the challenges they will face include providing more workforce training to increase household earnings, hiring a financial health counselor to help families improve credit scores and money management, partnering with groups like Habitat for Humanity to help families move from homelessness to home ownership, and increasing the pool of affordable housing by purchasing and preserving naturally occurring affordable housing.