Homestretch: Hope for Va. Homeless Families 

A man and two girls smile at the camera.

Photo by Shelli Hutchinson

Homestretch, Northern Virginia’s largest transitional housing program for families with children, started 15 years ago after the council began working with five families facing a housing crisis. 

“We started with a vague idea,” says Nancy Taxson, the executive director. “We had five families who were in trouble and we just worked with the needs that were there.” 

An offshoot of the Falls Church Community Service Council, Homestretch is now serving 105 families with 315 children and has 70 housing units through-out Northern Virginia. All told, in the last 14 years, it has helped 692 families with 1,780 children return to self-sufficiency. 

“Our overall goal,” Taxson says, “is to break cycles—of poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence—so that families can better raise children.” 

Along with rental subsidies and utility assistance, Homestretch provides family support services ranging from counseling to employment assistance, life-skills training, credit counseling and family mentoring. 

Clients are evaluated in 12 areas that Homestretch believes are critical to success: housing, employment, income/money management, transportation, health, domestic abuse, substance abuse, family relations, child services, education, language, and immigration. These areas are reevaluated every six months to determine their successes and weaknesses, and to set goals. These evaluations are then used as a benchmark for their success upon leaving the program. 

Homestretch also offers services to more than 200 children. Children are involved in a weekly teen club, and all children between the ages of 9-14 attend a week-long wilderness camp. Each December, children are taken on a shopping spree and allowed to choose one gift for each member of their family. “This is the first time many of them have ever bought something for another person,” Taxson points out. 

One of Homestretch’s most visible events is an international picnic each summer. Their clients – 50 percent of whom hail from 23 different countries – share their ethnic foods and customs, and children are given supplies for the upcoming school year. 

Both adults and children also participate in National Volunteer Day each year to, “teach them that everyone should volunteer, and that you don’t have to have money to give,” explains Taxson. 

On a weekly basis, clients take life-skills classes which focus on topics ranging from stress and time management to community resources and AIDS awareness. 

Of all the services offered, Taxson says that their five-year old credit program is the strongest. Each family works with a credit counselor to develop a budget strategy, and clients are required to pay 9 percent of the monthly income toward unpaid bills. Once credit issues are resolved, the 9 percent is deposited into a savings account held jointly with Homestretch. Clients without debt begin saving as soon as they enter the program. Clients also benefit from free professional tax-preparation assistance and zero-interest loan programs. “People literally do jigs when they leave the program”, says Taxson, “because they’re debt free for the first time in years.” 

Within two years of entering their program, 83 percent of Homestretch families move into permanent, affordable housing, and 90 percent are still living in secure housing two years after graduating the program. Homestretch caseworkers follow their graduates at 6, 12 and 24 months. They lose track of about 6 percent but find that only about 2 percent fail to sustain affordable housing. Furthermore, in the past two years, 10 families who graduated the program became first-time homeowners. 

Homestretch owns roughly one-third of their 70 units, all of which are located in a 20-mile radius of their office building and include both apartment-style dwellings and single-family homes. Families pay 30 percent of their income –the HUD standard—towards rent and utilities, and homestretch covers the rest. According to Taxson, in the past years Homestretch has collected roughly $200,000 from clients to be applied towards the program’s $700,000 rental fees. 

The remainder of the program’s finances comes from government sources, civic groups, corporations, and organizations such as Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac and United Way. 

Though Homestretch has focused on helping homeless families, its newest program focuses on group housing. Six single women were selected to share a large house, receiving the same services as all other program members. “We have been amazed by the women in that house,” many of whom are over 55 and victims of domestic violence, says Taxson. 

Moving forward, Homestretch is looking not to expand their program offerings, but rather to gain the funds to support neighboring counties. But, Taxson goes on “in a perfect world, we would like to see us disappear.” 

 

 

 


Issues |Housing|Permanent Supportive Housing


Region |Virginia

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