1. What makes the Families Moving Forward shelter different from others?
Unlike most emergency shelters, the families in our shelter do not stay 24 hours a day in a central facility. Instead, our overnight services are provided in a network of local congregations.
Our families usually stay at each congregation for one week at a time. Each congregation, through their volunteers, provides: food, beds and fellowship.
During the day, the families make our Day Center their home base, going to and from school or jobs, and looking for employment or housing.
Families Moving Forward staff work hard with each family individually to provide support, resources and guidance.
2. Is Families Moving Forward successful in helping families find housing?
YES! In 2007, 58% of all families served moved into housing from the shelter. In 2007, 100% of graduating families moved into their own successful housing. Unfortunately, some families do leave the program before completion and continue their cycle of homelessness.
3. Where do the families come from? Do they come from out of state?
Only about 20% of the families come into our shelter shortly after moving to Minnesota.
4. How does a guest family spend its day?
Our guest families arise early Sunday through Friday, ready to ride the Families Moving Forward bus back to the Day Center by 7:30 a.m. (On Saturday, the schedule is more relaxed, allowing time for a more leisurely breakfast.) Volunteers who have slept overnight in their hosting congregation with the families or have come in early to set out breakfast are always ready to help the parents get the children ready and on the bus on time.
At the Day Center in north Minneapolis, guest families have storage lockers for their belongings and have free access to our laundry facilities, showers, kitchen, computers and books. School-age children go to school; adults with jobs go to work. Parents of small children spend their days in the Day Center, caring for their own children and using the Day Center telephone to search for housing for their family.
At the end of the day, everyone comes back to the Day Center in preparation for the bus ride back to the overnight host congregation. After helping to clean and tidy the Center's living room and kitchen, all of the guests board the bus at 5:30 p.m. At the hosting congregation, volunteers are ready with supper, conversation and toys for the children to play with. After working with the volunteers to clean up the supper dishes, the guests make lunches for the next day and relax before everyone goes to bed. This includes one or two volunteers from the congregation, who stay to make sure that everyone stays safe and warm all night.
5. How big a problem is family homelessness in Minnesota? Is it growing or shrinking?
Homelessness is a growing problem, especially among families with children. Since 1991, the Wilder Foundation has conducted a survey of Minnesota's population of homeless people every three years. Their latest estimate (based on an August 2006 census) is that on any given night, 9,200 are homeless in Minnesota, including more than 4,140 children. This is three times more people than were found to be homeless in 1991. Today, homeless children outnumber Minnesota's entire homeless population from that 1991 survey. The popular image of homelessness -- the single adult sleeping under a bridge -- is simply not realistic any longer.
6. Are most homeless people on welfare and unemployed?
Homelessness is not limited to the unemployed. In 2006, the Wilder Foundation found that over one-third of all homeless parents in Minnesota reported that they were employed.
7. What causes homelessness? Is it poverty or the lack of affordable apartments?
Average Full-time salary $1,066.
Average Twin Cities rent $855. See a problem?
We do not know whether poverty or homelessness came first, but it is clear that homelessness is closely related to the scarcity of affordable housing. The Greater Twin Cities United Way has found that more than 36% of the residents of the metropolitan area spend more than 30% of their total household income on housing costs today, giving these residents the dubious distinction of living in non-affordable housing. Although jobs and wages increased in this area in the 1990's, average apartment rents and the average cost of starter homes increased faster, because the creation of these lower-end-of-the-market types of housing stalled. The result has been very low vacancy rates, increasing rents and application fees and severe competition for the available housing.
The result is that, for increasing numbers of families, adequate housing is out of reach. The National Low Income Housing Coalition compares the average fair market rent for a two-bedroom unit to the average wages paid in that community to calculate the "Housing Wage" necessary so that a family spends no more than 30% of its income for housing, as the federal standard requires. Given the tight rental market in the Twin Cities, the Housing Wage here is $17.54 per hour, more than three times the minimum wage. Looked at from another point of view, this means that a minimum wage worker would have to work 136 hours per week to be able to afford the average two-bedroom unit. Even the average efficiency apartment would require 83 hours per week of work by a minimum wage worker, in order to be considered affordable.
8. How does homelessness affect children?
Homelessness damages children. The Family Housing Fund conducted a survey of professional research on the effect of homelessness in 1999. They concluded that homeless children are not merely at risk of damage, most also suffer specific physical, psychological and emotional damage due to experiencing homelessness.
Physical health: Homeless children consistently exhibit more health problems, have higher risk for infectious diseases, are at greater risk for asthma and lead poisoning and generally lack access to consistent health care.
Emotional health: Homeless children suffer stresses and trauma that they are unprepared to handle, leading to severe emotional distress, higher incidence of mental disorders and frequent episodes of unacceptable behavior, although they usually do not have access to professional assistance for these problems.
Academic development: Homeless children's academic performance is seriously affected by their poor physical and emotional health, as well as by the number of times that they are forced to change schools and teachers due to their family's unstable housing and frequent moves.
9. What is the demand for Families Moving Forward's shelter?
For the past couple of years, we have gotten 25 telephone calls from homeless families for each opening in our shelter.
More recently, beginning in September 2007, the ratio went up to 50 calls for each opening.
