A nationwide program called Family Promise is establishing a group on Grays Harbor to help homeless families get back on their feet and it’s gaining momentum as a number of local churches have joined forces to host families in need.

Phil MacNealy is the president of Family Promise Grays Harbor and said the national Family Promise program has proven effective in the three decades since it was founded in New Jersey.

“It’s a program that focuses on homeless families,” he said. As an example of the need for the program locally, he said in the Aberdeen School District alone there are 400 students classified as homeless.

The effort takes a great deal of cooperation and a large number of volunteers. MacNealy said the group has been meeting monthly and has made progress in attracting volunteers, recruiting congregations to open their doors to homeless families, and fundraising.

“We are trying to get 13 host congregations, churches, that will house 14 people, so like three or four families (at a time),” he said. So far the group has seven congregations that have agreed to participate, with another one taking a vote in the next week on becoming the eighth. Currently, the churches that have agreed to be host congregations include Montesano Presbyterian Church, First Presbyterian Church of Aberdeen, Our Lady of Good Hope Catholic church in Hoquiam, First United Methodist Church of Aberdeen, The Glory Center, United Christian Church of Aberdeen, and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.

Families would stay with a host congregation for a week. There they would get an evening meal and have a place to sleep.

“They provide some time for families to get together with volunteers, talk, play games,” said MacNealy. “At the end of the week they would be moved to another host congregation.” He said that limiting a family’s time to a week at a particular congregation emphasizes the temporary nature of the program; the goal is to give families a safe place to stay while providing some of the tools and services necessary to move them into their own more permanent housing.

The program also requires a day center, where families spend the day. Families would be shuttled from the church to the day center, where they would have access to shower facilities, laundry, and computers that can be used for job searches and pursuing a GED or other kinds of training that would increase their chances at better steady employment.

“We have had a day center offered to us, but we need to check it out to make sure it fulfills what the program needs,” said MacNealy. The day center would also have a full-time case worker, and would give the families in the program a fixed address.

“For the adults, a fixed address is important for job searches. Without a fixed address it’s almost impossible to get a job,” said MacNealy. “From the children’s viewpoint it’s beneficial because the school districts know where to pick them up. One of the issues when a family doesn’t have a fixed address is that school attendance suffers.”

Not everyone would qualify for the program, he added.

“The program requires that the adults in the families need to set goals and as they proceed in the program they need to show evidence that they are working toward those goals,” said MacNealy. “Goals would include getting employment, getting better employment, obtaining a GED and whatever else that would be helpful for them to get out of our program and into permanent housing.”

Besides the case worker at the day center, the program will have a fully vetted board of directors. Applicants for the program would be screened, and if there’s a history of domestic violence or drugs, they would be disqualified from the program, said MacNealy.

“Nationwide, generally families are in the program about 60 days before permanent housing is found for them. Then another family would be brought on board,” said MacNealy. “It’s not a fixed timeline; as long as the adults are moving toward their goals, if it takes 75, 90 days that’s OK.”

MacNealy, who taught elementary school students in Hoquiam for 40 years, was attracted to the Family Promise program because it keys on what he called a too-often overlooked segment of the homeless population: young families who want to make a better life for themselves and their children and are committed to doing what it takes to achieve that, find permanent housing and maintain it.

“It seems like that is almost a forgotten group,” he said. “When we’ve made presentations we start off with peoples’ perceptions of homeless people. Most think of the shopping carts, living on the river, but rarely do we think of young children (in the homeless community).”

Family Promise will work closely with agencies such as the Coastal Community Action Program, school districts and nonprofits like the Salvation Army to ensure there is no redundancy of efforts, said MacNealy.

“It’s possible somebody can be in the program but does not have a high enough paying job to get into permanent housing,” he said. “So Family Promise can set up a bank account for them where they can deposit their checks, which removes another barrier to finding housing.” Much like lack of a permanent address can make it tough to find work, lack of an active bank account makes it difficult to find housing, he said.

Family Promise Grays Harbor is still in the planning stages and not yet housing families.

“To get there we need three things to happen,” said MacNealy. “We need to get as close to the 13 host congregations as we can, and we also need the day center; without it the program doesn’t work. The third thing is funding.”

The latter was helped along by a grant from the Grays Harbor Community Foundation awarded to Family Promise Grays Harbor earlier in October.

“Family Promise takes 12 to 24 months to get organized; it’s not a quick process,” said MacNealy. “But because we take so much time to put all the pieces into place that will lend to the success of the program, we are able to serve these families in the best way possible.”

The more volunteers the better, said MacNealy. Volunteers are generally asked to only perform two hours of service to the program four times a year. Between that, the small number of clients the program has at any given time, and the effort spread between 13 different congregations, the amount of volunteer burnout would be kept to a minimum, he said.

If you would like to get involved with the Family Promise program, contact MacNealy at pncemac@comcast.net, call him at 360-581-1444, or attend one of their meetings at 7 p.m. the third Tuesday of each month at the Amazing Grace Lutheran Church at 114 S. 4th St. in Aberdeen.