Help for Homelessness
By addressing the root causes of homelessness, Family Promise of the Lower Cape Fear helps homeless families achieve sustainable independence.
When Talia Henderson’s 32-year-old husband died suddenly of a COVID-related heart attack, the family went into a downhill spiral that ended with the mother and her two young children in homelessness. Fortunately, Family Promise of Lower Cape Fear was there to help.
“Family Promise was great,” Henderson says. “They placed us in an emergency shelter. Then, when I started working, we moved to their apartments until we were able to find a mobile home we could afford on our own.”
Last year, 98 percent of people served in the agency’s secured housing program were able to move out into independent housing within 12 weeks. Its mission is to support “families experiencing housing instability, including domestic violence survivors, to achieve sustainable independence.” Their website says they assisted 10,163 people last year, 6,013 of those being children.
The local nonprofit, which operates in New Hanover, Pender, and Brunswick counties, has been helping families since 1996. Founded as the Wilmington Interfaith Hospitality Network, Family Promise was a response of local churches to the homeless crisis. The original model was to place families in their worship space when it was not in use. Today, Family Promise owns 12 apartments and a mobile home. The organization still maintains ties to local churches and depends on individuals, churches, corporations and governmental grants for funding. Local churches and individuals provide dinner each evening to apartment residents to relieve pressure on working parents and to reduce their food expenses.
“Homeless families are often not seen,” says Angie Hill, Family Promise’s interim executive director. “They are reluctant to be noticed by law enforcement because their children may be taken away because they cannot care for them properly. If they go to most organizations for help, the families may be split up because the shelters are not equipped to care for men, women and children. Many homeless families end up sleeping in their cars.”
Eighty-six percent of the families that interact with Family Promise are affected by domestic violence.
Other common reasons are loss of employment and high rental costs. Family Promise also has a program that guarantees that landlords will be paid rent payments for a period of time if they take a risk and rent to someone coming out of homelessness.
“We take in families as long as there is a dependent,” Hill says, adding that the definition of a family can be non-traditional. It can include mother, father and kids and single parents and children, but also grandparents with dependent children, same-sex families and others.
Hill says Family Promise is blessed to have a great board of directors and volunteers, but points out that raising funds is a critical need too. Currently, Family Promise has only two full-time staff members. The board’s priorities this year are increased awareness and stabilizing finances.
“We want to expand to help even more families,” Hill says. “We’ve been doing great work for nearly 30 years and most people don’t know we exist.”
Henderson’s husband had previously worked at a Bladen County chicken farm. Once he died, she was left to care for their children, 11 and 10 years old. She and her children moved to Wilmington where she had family.
“We lived in the emergency shelter first,” Henderson says. “Finally, I was able to begin working at a fast-food restaurant and eventually a local pain management clinic, and I was able to afford a three-bed Family Promise apartment.”
To qualify for housing, Henderson had to provide a security deposit and the first month’s rent room, which was $648, well below the market rate for a one-bedroom apartment. During her 14-month stay, part of the time she lived with an approved roommate in a three-bedroom apartment they shared. Currently, families living in apartments pay rent based on income. Local market-rate rent for one-bedroom apartments typically rent for $ 1,200 to $1,600 per month.
Henderson says that Merry Whyte, the Family Services coordinator, is a “great counselor.” She’s available to talk on a 24-hour emergency basis and is often able to calm people in crisis situations.
“Sometimes I get calls in the middle of the night from mothers who are stressed out because of the uncertainty of their situation,” Whyte says. “Once, I got a call from a mom threatening suicide. Fortunately, I was able to get to the the client and keep her from hurting herself until the and EMS arrived. Usually, I talk to them — sometimes for hours — and they are able to settle down.”
Unfortunately, though, Whyte says, “We have a problem where low-income families cannot afford to live in this area. Rent payments often require a huge part of their income that would not leave enough for food and other necessities.”
A key to Family Promise’s success is not just housing families but teaching skills. While in the group’s housing programs, residents can take classes teaching skills like job hunting, how to interview successfully and how to use a computer.
How are Henderson and her children doing now? She’s working, engaged and renting market-rate housing without assistance. That’s a far cry from a few years ago.
Learn More
Family Promise of the Lower Cape Fear
20 N. 4th Street, Wilmington
(910) 769-4730
familypromiselowercapefearnc.org
Applications for assistance are available on the organization’s website and at their office in the Harrelson Center in downtown Wilmington.
Request a copy today!
