Dec 14, 2013 3 min read

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Family Promise of Washington County, a homeless shelter for families, has temporarily closed its doors but plans to reopen sometime in 2014.

Family Promise executive director Laura Vincenti said the decision was made because the program that Family Promise runs, formerly called Interfaith Hospitality Network, does not have enough churches to host homeless families.

As part of Family Promise’s partnership with local congregations, families rotate among the partner churches one week at a time, with each church housing and feeding the family during its week.

“We made the very difficult decision to temporarily suspend operations. The reason is that we are a network of church congregations, and right now we don’t have enough churches in the network to host guests without overburdening our church partners,” said Vincenti.

According to Vincenti, Family Promise needs between 11 and 13 host partners to operate, but some churches have retired from the organization, and the program has fallen short by at least three host churches. Ideally, a host congregation will host five to six weeks out of the year.

In addition, Family Promise lost federal and local funding used to help cover operating expenses at the Washington Family Shelter, 297 E. Beau St., Washington, where homeless families spend time during the day before church volunteers pick up the families and drive them to the hosting church for the night. The volunteers cook meals and spend the night with the homeless families, who are returned to the day center on Beau Street the next morning.

Family Promise lost Emergency Solutions Grant funding – federal funding distributed by counties to programs that serve the homeless population – and was not included in this year’s round of United Way funding.

The toughest part of the decision, said Vincenti, is knowing that homeless families will be forced to look for an alternative shelter.

“There are families to be served with the program that are not being served, and that’s sad,” said Vincenti.

In 2012, the programs in Washington and Crafton served 33 families – 46 adults and 71 children, 40 of whom were 5 years old or younger. The program continues to operate in Crafton.

Family Promise is looking at options, including recruiting churches that don’t have space to host families to partner with and provide volunteers for host churches.

“Family Promise is a community response to homelessness. There are members of the community who volunteer who are not tied to a church but want to get involved. And Family Promise started in the faith community, but a host doesn’t need to be a church,” said Vincenti, referring to eBay, the online company that serves as a host partner in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Family Promise is a national organization with more than 180 affiliates across the country. It includes more than 6,000 churches and more than 135,000 volunteers who work to help families experiencing homelessness to regain housing, independence and dignity.

Vincenti said about 65 Family Promise volunteers turned out at a recent meeting she organized to discuss the direction of the organization, and she said the response was overwhelmingly supportive.

“The message, loud and clear, was let’s work together and get Washington open again. It’s too important to our community and our congregations to let it go away,” said Vincenti. “We will be back, and we will be a stronger organization.”