Found House Interfaith Hospitality Network
990 Nassau Street
Cincinnati, OH 45206
Family Emergency Shelter with Child Enrichment
Grant Application:
Family Emergency Shelter combines community-support with?professional services to provide Emergency Shelter to families experiencing homelessness. This includes emergency overnight shelter, three meals per day, developing a case plan, and ongoing services provided by our professional shelter staff. During the Covid-19 pandemic, nightly shelter and case management services were provided at a local hotel.
IHNGC’s Child Enrichment is an embedded service in the Emergency Shelter program, which focuses on minimizing factors that would otherwise put children’s futures at risk, providing educational support, structured activities, and integrated assessment services. The positive outcomes that kids and their parents achieve through IHNGC’s programs in the short-term can have long-lasting effects that follow them into brighter futures.
Goals/Objectives:
We did not submit a grant application for this grant renewal, so there are no original goals or objectives.
Some of our standard emergency shelter program goals are:
Goal #1: Families exit shelter for stable housing outcomes.
Measurement #1: 85% of families exit shelter to stable housing.
Goal #2: Families that exit emergency shelter retain their housing for at least one year.
Measurement #2: At least 90% of families that exit emergency shelter retain housing for at least one year without a return to homelessness.
Goal #3: The basic needs of children and parent experiencing loss of housing are met.
Measurement #3: 70 families will be served in shelter along with their parents/caretakers.
Grant Evaluation Report:
FHIHN’s emergency shelter has transitioned back to our traditional congregation host shelter model from the hotel model used during the COVID pandemic. We continued to supplement this model with hotel stays for families during times when congregations are not able to provide overnight hosting, such as during the pandemic, or recently when a congregation that experienced flood damage was unable to provide their space as planned.
Challenges facing housing insecure families including lack of affordable housing, stable livable-wage employment, childcare issues, and delays in CMHA application processing have become even more challenging in recent years as evident by the increasing shelter length of stay. Six years ago, on average FHIHN families took 30 days to exit emergency shelter to stable housing. In 2022, that number rose to 76 days. This increase means fewer families provided with emergency shelter services, further taxing households in need and clogging service systems.
Overall, FHIHN considers the Emergency Shelter program to be successful. Despite the post pandemic challenges combined with affordable housing shortages, FHIHN continues to assist families in finding stable housing and providing resources so that maintain stable housing going forward.
Results:
Program goals and outcomes are monitored monthly, and results are calculated annually. The following outcomes and measurements are based on the Found House IHN fiscal year – January 1, 2022-December 31, 2022.
Goal 1 – 92% of families exited Found House IHN’s emergency shelter to stable housing outcomes in 2022.
Goal 2 – 88% of families that exited Found House IHN’s emergency shelter in 2021 maintained their housing for at least 1 year and did not return to homelessness.
Goal 3 – 39 households with 61 children and 54 adults were provided emergency shelter services by Found House IHN in 2022.
In addition, 100% of children in emergency shelter were provided educational and activity resources and 100% of school-aged children were referred to Project Connect through Cincinnati Public Schools to ensured consistent school access, registration, and transportation.
Website:
http://www.foundhouse.org Amount: $30,000
Date: June 2022
