Project H.O.M.E.

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Project HOME is a nationally recognized 501(c)(3) non-profit organization [1] that provides housing, opportunities for employment, medical care and education to homeless and low-income persons in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Project HOME Logo.jpg

The mission of the Project HOME community is "to empower adults, children, and families to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty, to alleviate the underlying causes of poverty, and to enable all of us to attain our fullest potential as individuals and as members of the broader society". [2] Project HOME works to achieve this mission through a continuum of care, which provides individuals a range of supportive services suited to their particular degree of self-sufficiency. [3]

The work of Project HOME is rooted in a belief in "the dignity of each person" and "the transformational power of building relationships and community". [2] Project HOME is a vision-centered organization that believes "none of us are home until all of us are home". [2]

History

Co-founders and beginnings

Sister Mary Scullion and Joan Dawson McConnon co-founded Project HOME in 1989. Their work together began in the winter of 1988, when they opened a temporary shelter in a vacant recreation center donated by the City of Philadelphia benefitting chronically homeless men. [4] With start-up funds from the Connelly Foundation, Scullion and McConnon were able to expand their efforts and found Project HOME the following year. [5]

Project HOME gained national recognition for its four-year political and legal battle to open a residence for formerly homeless individuals at 1515 Fairmount Avenue. Though the property's zoning permit was secured from the project's onset in 1990, neighborhood associations slowed the development process when they sought to overturn the building permit in the courts. With the issue still unresolved in December 1992, the U.S. Justice Department sued the City of Philadelphia, on behalf of Project HOME, for violation of Fair Housing laws, which required the City to provide reasonable modifications in the building permits for the people with mental and physical disabilities who would live at 1515 Fairmount. [6] As the case continued in the court system, Project HOME undertook substantial acts of advocacy to attract media attention including community petitions and a vigil outside the Mayor's office that ended in 23 arrests for civil disobedience. [7] After several steps in the appeals process, the final verdict came from a U.S. Court of Appeals in June 1994. The court ruled in favor of Project HOME and "reasonable accommodation". [8] 1515 Fairmount is now home to a 48-unit single room occupancy facility. [9]

Programs

Street outreach

In partnership with the City and other service providers, Project HOME's Outreach Coordination Center (OCC) oversees all outreach to people living on the streets of Philadelphia. Response workers attempt to build long-term, trusting relationships with people experiencing homelessness and gradually lead them toward seeking help. [10] Outreach teams work almost around the clock, seven days per week, [11] with additional teams out during summer and winter weather emergencies. [12]

Housing

Project HOME provides a range of supportive housing for all phases of recovery including safe havens, transitional housing and permanent supportive housing. The level of supportive services, such as case management and on-site medical care, varies based on individual need. [13] Project HOME believes that more affordable, permanent housing is the most cost-effective solution to ending chronic homelessness. [14]

Employment initiatives

The Adult Learning and Workforce Development program engages residents with employment services including job readiness clubs, career fairs, resume writing classes, dress for success workshops, customer service training and job placement with community partners. [15] Project HOME also sponsors employment experience for youth in North Central Philadelphia. The John and Sheila Connors Youth Employment Program sponsors summer internships for neighborhood teens in Project HOME offices and other community offices and the Harold A. Honickman Young Entrepreneurs Program gives teens the opportunity to create and run their own small businesses. [16]

Project HOME also provides some residents with employment experience at its small businesses: Our Daily Threads thrift store and the HOME Page Café. The Café, located in the lobby of the Central Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, is a partnership between Project HOME, the Free Library and Bank of America. It serves Starbucks coffee and baked goods from Metropolitan Bakery. The Free Library also employs Project HOME residents through the Library Restroom Attendants program, in which employees perform light cleaning and maintenance and provide information about homeless services to anyone in need. [17]

The Home Page Café closed permanently in 2016. [18]

Educational resources

Opened in December 2003, the Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs is a 38,000-square-foot (3,500 m2) educational facility in North Central Philadelphia featuring 225 computers, high-tech meeting spaces and Smart Boards in each classroom. The Learning Center is home to an after-school program with comprehensive literacy instruction; a resource center for grandparents raising children; GED and basic technology classes; digital media, art and music instruction; [19] and the Community Partnership School, an independent grade school for neighborhood children run by Germantown Academy in partnership with Project HOME [20]

Advocacy

Project HOME seeks to ensure that all members of its community have a voice in the political process. The organization helps and encourages residents to advocate for themselves and educate policy makers about the issues of poverty, homelessness, mental illness and addiction. [21] Project HOME's successful advocacy initiatives include the 1515 Fairmount legal battle, the Vote for Homes Coalition, a campaign that trains volunteers to register homeless and low-income voters, [22] and the 1998 negotiation of the Sidewalk Behavior Ordinance. As a result of activism by the homeless advocacy community, Philadelphia City Council passed a version of the ordinance that did not criminalize living on the streets; required police to contact an outreach worker before issuing a citation to a homeless person; and provided additional funding for the Outreach Coordination Center and supportive housing. [23]

Recognition and awards

Project HOME's work has been recognized as a model for ending homelessness by news organizations across the country including The New York Times , [24] the San Francisco Chronicle , [25] The Denver Post, [26] and The Philadelphia Inquirer . [27] U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan has stated that the work of Sister Mary Scullion in Philadelphia exemplifies supportive housing as a good investment more "than anywhere else in the country". [28]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homelessness in the United States</span>

In the United States, the number of homeless people varies from different federal government accounts. In 2014, approximately 1.5 million sheltered homeless people were counted. In 2018, the Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated roughly 553,000 homeless people in the United States on a given night, or 0.17 percent of the population. Approximately 65 percent of people were sheltered in provided housing while 35 percent were unsheltered. Annual federal HUD reports contradict private state and local reports where homelessness is shown to have increased each year since 2014 across several major American cities, with 40 percent increases noted in 2017 and in 2019.

Supportive housing is a combination of housing and services intended as a cost-effective way to help people live more stable, productive lives, and is an active "community services and funding" stream across the United States. It was developed by different professional academics and US governmental departments that supported housing. Supportive housing is widely believed to work well for those who face the most complex challenges—individuals and families confronted with homelessness and who also have very low incomes and/or serious, persistent issues that may include substance use disorders, mental health, HIV/AIDS, chronic illness, diverse disabilities or other serious challenges to stable housing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">So Others Might Eat</span>

So Others Might Eat (SOME) is a nonprofit organization that provides services to assist those dealing with poverty and homelessness in Washington, D.C. The organization provides affordable housing, job training, counseling and other healthcare services, and daily needs such as food and clothing to the poor and homeless. It spends the largest portion of its annual budget on affordable housing, with a majority of its residents recovering from addiction. SOME describes its mission as helping "our vulnerable neighbors in Washington, DC, break the cycle of homelessness through our comprehensive and transformative services".

Housing First is a policy that offers unconditional, permanent housing as quickly as possible to homeless people, and other supportive services afterward. It was first discussed in the 1990s, and in the following decades became government policy in certain locations within the Western world. There is a substantial base of evidence showing that Housing First is both an effective solution to homelessness and a form of cost savings, as it also reduces the use of public services like hospitals, jails, and emergency shelters. Cities like Helsinki and Vienna in Europe have seen dramatic reductions in homelessness due to the adaptation of Housing First policies, as have the North American cities Columbus, Ohio, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Medicine Hat, Alberta.

The Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) is a non-profit organization in Seattle, Washington providing services for that city's homeless population. The organization was founded in 1979 to aid men and women living in a state of chronic homelessness who, due to their severe and persistent mental and addictive illnesses, were not being served by the existing shelters of the time. At its opening, the non-profit sheltered nearly 200 adults from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. in the ballroom of the Morrison Hotel. Today, DESC is a recognized national leader in homelessness services that specializes in shelters and supportive housing projects. It operates under a Housing First model with a low-barrier for entry into services. DESC clients engage with mental health services, case management and employment services at DESC projects. DESC currently operates 5 shelters and 15 supportive housing projects and is largely funded by the City of Seattle and King County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breaking Ground</span> Nonprofit organization in New York City

Breaking Ground, formerly Common Ground, is a nonprofit social services organization in New York City whose goal is to create high-quality permanent and transitional housing for the homeless. Its philosophy holds that supportive housing costs substantially less than homeless shelters — and many times less than jail cells or hospital rooms, and that people with psychiatric and other problems can better manage them once they are permanently housed and provided with services. Since its founding in 1990 by Rosanne Haggerty, the organization has created more than 5,000 units of housing for the homeless. "This is about creating a small town, rather than just a building," according to Haggerty. "It's about a real mixed society, working with many different people." Haggerty left the organization in 2011 to found Community Solutions, Inc. Brenda Rosen was promoted from Director, Housing Operations and Programs to Executive Director, and has led the organization since.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Scullion</span>

Sister Mary Scullion, R.S.M. is a Philadelphia-based American Roman Catholic religious sister and activist, named by "Time" as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2009, alongside Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey.

Elizabeth Street Common Ground Supportive Housing in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia is a supportive housing project that will provide 161 individuals and families with homes in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne by September 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alliance for Positive Change</span>

Alliance for Positive Change - formerly known as AIDS Service Center NYC (ASCNYC) - is a community organization that helps New Yorkers living with HIV and other chronic illnesses. Founded in 1990 by CEO Sharen Duke, Alliance provides direct services to over 1,800 New Yorkers per year, while its peer education programs and community outreach initiatives reach an additional 18,000. In 2017, the organization formally changed its name to The Alliance for Positive Change. This change came as the nonprofit expanded to help more New Yorkers with substance use and mental health issues, and program participants with chronic illnesses such as hepatitis, diabetes, and heart disease.

Launch Housing is a secular Melbourne-based community organisation that delivers homelessness services and housing supports to disadvantaged Victorians.

Conard House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in the SoMa arts district of San Francisco, working to support adults living with serious mental health and medical conditions. The organization's restated mission is "to empower people who live and work on the margins of society."

Palladia, Inc. is a social services organization in New York City, working with individuals and families challenged by addiction, homelessness, AIDS, domestic violence, poverty and trauma. Founded in 1970, Palladia was known as Project Return Foundation until 2002. The organization began as a drug treatment facility and evolved to address the concerns of its clients, developing services such as domestic violence shelters, outpatient drug treatment programs, parenting programs, AIDS outreach, alternatives to incarceration, and transitional and permanent housing. Today Palladia serves over 1300 clients daily.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carrfour Supportive Housing</span>

Carrfour Supportive Housing is a nonprofit organization established in 1993 by the Homeless Committee of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. It develops, operates and manages affordable and supportive housing communities for low-income individuals and families in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Carrfour is Florida's largest not-for-profit supportive housing provider, housing more than 10,000 formerly homeless men, women and children in 20 communities throughout Miami-Dade County, assembling over $300 million of financing, tax credits and subsidies, and developing more than 1,700 affordable housing units since its founding.

Third Sector Capital Partners, Inc. is a nonprofit advisory firm with offices in Boston, Massachusetts, San Francisco, California, and Washington, DC. Founded in 2011, Third Sector leads governments, nonprofits, and private funders in building evidence-based initiatives and Pay for Success projects. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Third Sector is supported through philanthropic and government sources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homelessness and mental health</span>

In a study in Western societies, homeless people have a higher prevalence of mental illness when compared to the general population. They also are more likely to suffer from alcoholism and drug dependency. It is estimated that 20–25% of homeless people, compared with 6% of the non-homeless, have severe mental illness. Others estimate that up to one-third of the homeless have a mental illness. In January 2015, the most extensive survey ever undertaken found 564,708 people were homeless on a given night in the United States. Depending on the age group in question and how homelessness is defined, the consensus estimate as of 2014 was that, at minimum, 25% of the American homeless—140,000 individuals—were seriously mentally ill at any given point in time. 45% percent of the homeless—250,000 individuals—had any mental illness. More would be labeled homeless if these were annual counts rather than point-in-time counts. Being chronically homeless also means that people with mental illnesses are more likely to experience catastrophic health crises requiring medical intervention or resulting in institutionalization within the criminal justice system. Majority of the homeless population do not have a mental illness. Although there is no correlation between homelessness and mental health, those who are dealing with homelessness are struggling with psychological and emotional distress. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration conducted a study and found that in 2010, 26.2 percent of sheltered homeless people had a severe mental illness.

Bethesda Project is a nonprofit organization that provides shelter, housing, and programs reaching out to individuals experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From humble beginnings as a small group of volunteers, Bethesda Project has grown to provide care that encompasses emergency shelter, housing, and supportive services at 15 locations in and around Center City Philadelphia.

The 100,000 Homes Campaign was an initiative of Community Solutions designed to "help communities around the country place 100,000 chronically homeless people in 186 communities in the United States into permanent supportive housing." Due to the cost of emergency department treatment, the program aims to provide housing for the homeless, as it is cheaper in the long run. In 2014, the program was featured on 60 Minutes, focusing on the homeless population in Nashville, Tennessee. Becky Kanis Margiotta was the campaign director. By July 2014, the 100,000 Homes Campaign had reached its goal and housed 105,580 of the most vulnerable homeless individuals.

Community Housing Partnership is a nonprofit organization in San Francisco, California, that provides housing, job training and other services to people formerly living in homelessness. Founded in 1990, it owns and operates 14 residential buildings and collaborates with other organizations in its goals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Fair</span> American activist

David Fair is an American activist who has been a leader in the labor, LGBT, AIDS, homeless and child advocacy movements in Philadelphia, PA since the 1970s. He has founded or co-founded several advocacy and service organizations, including the Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force (1977), the Philadelphia Gay Cultural Festival (1978), Lavender Health (1979), the Philadelphia/Delaware Valley Union of the Homeless (1985), Philly Homes 4 Youth (2017), The Coalition for Queer Equity, and the Philadelphia Coalition on Opioids and Children (2018), and led the creation of numerous local government health and human service initiatives, including the AIDS Activities Coordinating Office for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health (1987) and the Division of Community-Based Prevention Services (2001), the Parenting Collaborative (2003), and the Quality Parenting Initiative (2014) for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services.

References

  1. ↑ "Project HOME Charity Navigator Listing" . Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 "About Us" . Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  3. ↑ Fine, Melinda and Jonathan Walters. "Promoting self-sufficiency among homeless people: A continuum of care and social policy alternatives" (PDF). NYU Wagner. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  4. ↑ Roberts, Tom (April 2, 2009). "Time cites nun among 100 most influential". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  5. ↑ Lin, Jennifer (April 18, 2010). "Mary of mercy: Homeless find hope, hanging out with a nun". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  6. ↑ Loeb, Vernon (December 25, 1992). "To Homeless, A Better Life Hangs On Technicalities". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  7. ↑ Rosenberg, Amy S. (April 1, 1994). "Shelter's Supporters Protest At City Hall". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  8. ↑ Davies, Dave (June 11, 1994). "Project Home Wins In Court". Philadelphia Daily News . Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  9. ↑ "Permanent Supportive Housing". Project HOME. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  10. ↑ Slobodzian, Joseph A. (April 12, 2005). "From streets to shelter, a success - and a puzzle". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  11. ↑ Ritter, Kera (December 6, 2006). "Under a Code Blue, a call for action". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  12. ↑ Fiedler, Elizabeth (February 25, 2010). "Winter wears on homeless and their advocates". WHYY-FM. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  13. ↑ "Supportive Housing and Services". Project HOME. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  14. ↑ Chisholm, Laura; Weinbaum, Laura; Yoder, Rachel (2010). "Saving Lives, Saving Money: Cost-Effective Solutions to Chronic Homelessness in Philadelphia" (PDF).
  15. ↑ Project HOME, "Adult Learning & Workforce Development", 2006, {http://www.projecthome.org/services/education/adult.php}, 09-01-10
  16. ↑ "H.Y.P.E. Teen Program" (PDF). Project HOME. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  17. ↑ "Café & Thrift Shop". Project HOME. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  18. ↑ "HOME Page Café" . Retrieved February 24, 2023.
  19. ↑ Honickman Foundation, "The Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs: A Project HOME Initiative opens for business", 2004-2010, {http://honickmanfoundation.org/education/HOME.php} 09-01-10
  20. ↑ Community Partnership School, "Partnerships", 2007-2009, {http://www.communitypartnershipschool.org/Partnerships/138/} 09-01-10
  21. ↑ "Advocacy & Public Policy". Project HOME. Retrieved June 1, 2012.
  22. ↑ Rittenhouse, Amanda (March 13, 2007). "Homeless, not voteless, in the city Canvassing to expand primary voices". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Retrieved June 1, 2012.
  23. ↑ Burt, Martha R.; et al. (January 2004). "Strategies for Reducing Chronic Street Homelessness" . Retrieved June 1, 2012.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  24. ↑ Editorial (June 9, 2003). "Up and Off the Streets". The New York Times . Retrieved June 1, 2012.
  25. ↑ Fagan, Kevin (May 13, 2004). "Success in the City of Brotherly Love". San Francisco Chronicle . Retrieved June 1, 2012.
  26. ↑ Editorial (August 20, 2004). "Untitled" (PDF). The Denver Post . Retrieved June 1, 2012.
  27. ↑ Editorial (April 9, 2005). "Combating Homelessness". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Retrieved June 1, 2012.
  28. ↑ Lin, Jennifer (April 18, 2010). "Mary of mercy". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Retrieved June 1, 2012.
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