Located on the beautiful grounds of the Franciscan Retreat Center at Mt. St. Francis Abbey in Colorado Springs our "Mt. St. Francis" house provides vulnerable families up to an additional six months of support and stability to prepare for moving into the open housing market.

 

Colorado is one of only 13 states that have less than the national level of affordable and available rental housing units per 100 households at or below 30% of “Area Median Income” (AMI).[1] Colorado Department of Education data show that in El Paso County there were 2,564 students who experienced homelessness during the 2012-2013 school year. Likewise, the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimates that 16.4% of families with children under the age of five in El Paso County are living below the poverty level.[2] Due the local shortage of affordable housing units it has become increasingly difficult to move families out of IHN’s Family Shelter Program in less than 90 days. Without access to low cost transitional housing IHN families are forced to wait until they have obtained employment and saved enough money to afford to move into permanent housing on the commercial housing market. In reality, this is forcing the hosting congregations in IHN’s shelter network to become unwitting (and likely unwilling) providers of long-term transitional housing.

 

The Community Care Transitional Housing Program is the logical expansion of Family Promise’s Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN). The Community Care Transitional Housing Program provides enhanced case management services combined with affordable, safe housing for up to six months for IHN families who need additional support before moving to independent housing. The focus of these enhanced services is to ensure that each IHN family builds their own new network of supportive relationships within the local community and that they learn to rely on this mutually supportive network for overcoming future life challenges. In addition, the affordable housing provided to the family significantly improves the financial stability of the family which greatly increases their long-term success rate in maintaining independent housing.

 

 

[1] National Low Income Housing Coalition, “Housing Spotlight”, Volume 5, Issue 1, March 2015.

 

[2] U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey Estimate, Selected Economic Characteristics 2009-2013, El Paso County, Colorado.