Louisville, KY – In Louisville, approximately 850 young adults below the age of 25 become homeless each year, and currently the Coalition for the Homeless has a waiting list of 113 unaccompanied homeless youth in need of housing. Organizers of the city’s new Host Homes Pilot Project aim for this innovative program to create a solution to the crisis by providing homeless young adults with a stable home environment and support services while they navigate the process of finding and securing their own permanent housing or reuniting with family. Local individuals and families who would like to learn more about opening their homes to provide safe, temporary housing for young adults ages 18-24 years old as an alternative to living on the streets or in emergency shelter, are invited to attend an informational meeting on Saturday, April 21 from 1:00pm to 2:30pm at Home of the Innocents, located at 1100 East Market Street.
The new city-wide program, which is spearheaded by the Coalition for the Homeless and conducted by Home of the Innocents, consists of a network of volunteer hosts who agree to take in a young adult who is experiencing homelessness. After an extensive screening and training process, families will serve as hosts for up to three months while the young people work with a case manager on a permanent housing solution. Homeless young adults will choose which family they would like to stay with, and the program manager will help facilitate a successful match. Volunteer hosts, who must be at least 25 years of age, provide a private bedroom and food to the young adult. If this pilot project is successful, the program will be expanded and opened to more families in 2019.
“We are asking the community to step up and help us provide this vulnerable population with temporary shelter and stability,” says Natalie Harris, Executive Director of the Coalition for the Homeless. “We know that this type of community-driven model has been successful in other cities, so we are expecting this program to help us move toward the ultimate goal of ending youth homelessness in Louisville by 2020.”
For more information about the Host Homes Pilot Project or how to become a Host Home family, please call Liza Smith at (502) 596-1328, email her at esmith@homeoftheinnocents.org, or visit www.louhomeless.org. Any church group or organization can also schedule to have a program manager come speak about project details and how to become more involved.
The Host Homes Pilot Project was made possible by grants in the amount of $20,000 from [give] 502 (a component fund of the Community Foundation of Louisville), $15,000 from the Gheens Foundation (part of an overall $30,000 grant), and $20,000 from the Community Foundation of Louisville.
About the Coalition for the Homeless
The Coalition for the Homeless, located at 1300 S. 4th Street, Suite 250, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a mission to prevent and eliminate homelessness in Louisville. The Coalition has a three-pronged approach to this mission: advocacy, education, and coordination of their 30+ member agencies who provide a variety of services to the homeless throughout the city. For more information, visit www.louhomeless.org, call (502) 636-9550, or find The Coalition for the Homeless on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LouHomeless or on Twitter @louhomeless.
About Home of the Innocents
Home of the Innocents is where Louisville and the surrounding region’s vulnerable children and youth find emotional, physical, and intellectual support that can transform their lives. The Home provides a range of important residential, treatment and community-based programs.
Serving more than 11,700 children and their families last year, Home of the Innocent offers a variety of programs. Those include offering a safe haven for at-risk children; pediatric medical care; shelter and education for pregnant and parenting teens; crisis and intervention services; clinical treatment services and therapeutic loving foster and adoption services. The Home also operates a pediatric convalescent center for children who are dependent on technology to sustain life, as well as children who are terminally ill.
