When Friendship Shelter announced its Home for Good campaign last summer, its goal of raising $1 million to support its housing stabilization efforts seemed ambitious. But the need was great. The organization works to help homeless adults in south Orange County move out of homelessness and into permanent housing, and provides ongoing services to ensure they remain permanently safe and stable in their housing. In launching the fundraising campaign, the organization was counting on the support of its community of donors to recognize the need and respond with generosity.
Less than a year after announcing the 18-month campaign, Friendship Shelter finds itself just $55,000 short of its original goal. At the same time, the organization sees new opportunities and emerging challenges. And so, its leaders have extended the goal by 30%, hoping to raise a total of $1.3 million by the end of 2024.
The new goal focuses on the original Home for Good strategies while adding an emphasis on preventing homelessness before it occurs. Today, Friendship Shelter works with a growing number of south Orange County residents currently in housing who are at risk of becoming homeless. The organization provides support through financial assistance and wrap-around stabilization services to either keep these clients in their housing or help identify a more appropriate housing unit to meet their circumstances and needs.
Friendship Shelter credits these wrap-around services – those that ensure long-term stability – with their success in ensuring housing stability. 98% of Friendship Shelter’s housing clients remain stable in their housing year after year.
“We know that the top predictor of future homelessness is an incidence of prior homelessness.” said Dawn Price, Friendship Shelter’s Executive Director. “Our primary goal is to end homelessness as swiftly as possible through permanent housing solutions, and we view prevention as a critical component to achieving this goal. We’re committed to keeping the tenants in our housing program stable in their housing, while preventing more individuals from falling into homelessness.”
The Home for Good campaign is designed to support key priorities that help to ensure Friendship Shelter clients have the resources they need to live successfully and permanently in their housing. The campaign’s goals are now to:
Prevent more people from falling into homelessness by providing financial assistance and stabilization services to either keep them in their current housing or to help identify a more appropriate housing unit to meet their needs.
Connect clients to mental and physical health care services, including in-home visits with psychiatric nurse practitioners who create lasting relationships with clients, building trust and delivering high-quality care.
Navigate complex relationships with landlords and property owners. Friendship Shelter staff serve as key relationship managers, facilitating in-home repairs, ensuring rent is paid on time, and more.
Recruit and retain professional staff while offering fair and competitive compensation. Staffing stability builds trust with clients, making it possible to help them stay safely housed, permanently ending their homelessness.
Each year, Friendship Shelter helps approximately 100 individuals move off the street or out of shelter and into permanent housing. On an ongoing basis, more than 250 formerly homeless people continue to receive wrap-around, whatever-it-takes stabilization support while in their housing. All funds raised through this effort support their goal of permanently ending homelessness for each client they work with.
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Friendship Shelter is a non-profit homeless services agency founded in 1988. They are dedicated to ending homelessness in south Orange County, one person at a time, and offer a full spectrum of services including outreach, shelter, housing navigation, financial assistance and permanent housing with services.
