Creating HOPE in the Future of Housing Stability

Creating HOPE in the Future of Housing Stability

What does it take to continually meet the needs of the community? That’s a question most nonprofits ask themselves regularly as they continue to grow and adapt their services.

Recently, we asked ourselves this question regarding our Housing Services, which has seen significant growth over the last five years. Our Madge Phillips Center Shelter, opening in 1995, was at a point where in order to continue operations we would have to raise funds for major renovations. It provided us an opportunity to evaluate our emergency shelter program to determine what our community needed most out of that space.

As an agency, we know the key to ending homelessness is providing stable housing, and we are very invested in providing more long-term solutions to individuals facing homelessness and housing instability. After thoughtful conversations with staff, key community members, and stakeholders, and evaluating our own data, as well as local and national data/trends, we determined it was time to shift the use of Madge Philips Center Shelter. As of January 1, 2024, the Madge Phillips Center Shelter space is empty to begin the early stages of evolving into affordable, supportive apartment units.

Please see below our reasoning:

• Over the past five years, the number of individuals staying at the Madge Philips Center Shelter has decreased by half. The specific numbers of this are a decrease of 260 individuals served in our shelter for Waypoint’s fiscal year 2019, to 138 in fiscal year 2023.
• Our preventive services have increased more than sixfold. Our homeless diversion/eviction prevention numbers grew from 412 to 2,983 over this five-year analysis.
• Combined with the other programs in our Housing Services, emergency shelter was serving .01% of the individuals using our programs.
• Recommendations from the National Alliance to End Homelessness to focus more on “housing first” initiatives.

This is further explained in a previous blog post and in an article published in April by the Gazette.  

The plan with this pivot is to remodel the upper level of the Madge Philips wing into 6-8 affordable housing units. We also plan to include case management and support to these renters who will be placed from our Coordinated Entry System. Right now, we are still finalizing plans for what we might do with our main and lower levels, whether we might try to branch into some services that can overlap with housing needs, or create additional housing units to the ones already planned. We do know that these renovations will be centered on ending homelessness and meeting our mission of  moving people forward.

This pivot follows suit to practices being established at other agencies, both locally and nationally. Two recent articles come to mind as far as providing information outside of our agency that also helped me understand this need to change services. First is an article published in the Gazette from this past February that explains more about the local need for support of community members at or below the 30% Area Median Income (AMI) threshold. The second is an article from The New Yorker that adds more personal narratives to this need and shows that this is a change needed across our nation.

A Steering Committee has been formed to work on this project, including staff, board members, and community members. As an agency, for 130 years we have been shifting and evolving to best meet the critical needs of our community. This is just one more of those shifts and we are excited to continue sharing the progress of this endeavor with you. Part of what it takes to continually meet the needs is the sustained hope and support that can be shared by stakeholders like you!  

- Thoughts by Jade Riley, Waypoint Volunteer and Community Engagement Coordinator

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