We are often asked to provide a history of how our agency got its start. We hope that this will be instructive to others around the country that are working to help the homeless population in their area.

We started with one concerned person who, working with her church, decided to challenge the other churches in the area to help with providing housing and social services for the homeless people in the area.

The CEC’s Adopt-A-Family program is a transitional housing program meaning that the families can be in the program for up to 24 months. This limitation is derived from the HUD grant funding guidelines. The HUD guidelines also establish a formula for a rent payment from each family. This formula is based on their income less their cost of childcare. As the family increases their income, they pay more money each month to the CEC. This helps to pay the cost of the housing and also prepared the family for their transition into the market based housing prices they will pay once they leave the program.

The Community Enrichment Center, working with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, at first leased and later purchased single-family housing at interest rates that made the financial plan affordable. The CEC then challenged local churches to each adopt one or more families. When the CED got started, its primary role was in obtaining the housing and raising the money to subsidize the expenses of the houses. Each of the local churches that adopted a family agreed to pay a portion of the mortgage for the house their family was living in. While the CEC worked the issues of finding and financing the housing, the local churches worked directly with the homeless families.

In adopting a family, each of the churches was asked to provide volunteers to paint the house and otherwise maintain it, the church members donated furniture to the homeless family to live in the house, and the church found a volunteer case manager to work with the family. The success of the program was dependent upon the high level of volunteer involvement by each of the participating churches.

After two years, the CEC applied for and received funding through HUD’s Supportive Housing Grant program. This HUD program was a direct result of the McKinney Act for the Homeless. Through the SHP grant, the CEC was able to hire professional case managers. The CEC also took over more and more of the housing maintenance role from the churches. This helped to provide professional social services to each family and to standardize the care and upkeep of the houses. The role of the local churches became one of providing volunteer mentors to work with the family in cooperation with the professional case managers. This approach allows the church to work with the family helping to provide furniture and other household goods without the burden of being responsible for helping the family obtain the right social services in the area or the burden of repairing leaky roofs or broken appliances.

The CEC’s program has expanded further with the addition of GED and life skills training. An education and employment coordinator was hired to assist each family in developing their own plan for educational growth with the goal of increasing their ability to earn higher wages. The CEC was able to get funding to set up a four computer workstation Learning Resource Center in which our families can learn basic reading and math skills all the way up to doing Internet job searches. We also have a fifth workstation with a variety of children’s math and reading skills software for the children of our families to use when their parents are working with their case managers or working on the computers themselves.

The CEC has been blessed with many businesses and individuals that donate money to help with this program. They, in combination with the government housing monies, the grant money from foundations, and the money raised from the churches who adopt families, all come together in a partnership that has succeeded in having over 900 families graduate from the Adopt-A-Family partnership.

Over the years, the CEC has had over 70 churches involved with its programs. The CEC now have over 20 churches that have adopted one or more families. In addition, we have other churches that participate in the program at a lesser level of commitment. The involvement of the local churches is key to the success of this program. No one church can do a project this big alone.

The Adopt-A-Family program has been a great collaboration between government, churches, businesses, community service organizations, schools, and individuals in guiding families to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty.

For further information, write or email the CEC.