More than 110 local children this year had a safe, stable place to live and thrive while their parents worked to lift their families out of homelessness. Before coming to Family Renew Community, many of these children and their parents slept in cars, on floors in overcrowded homes of exasperated loved ones, in seedy motels, or worse. One mother and her 17-year-old son with autism sought refuge from the streets in a storage unit.
Family Renew Community provided these 60 Volusia County families with much more than shelter. In the security and modest comfort of private, furnished apartments in Holly Hill, Daytona Beach and DeLand, these families could heal. Children went to school rested, bathed, in clean clothes and ready to study and play. With intensive yet compassionate guidance from case managers, mothers and fathers improved their employment, money management and parenting. They paid down debts, repaired credit and built savings. Dozens of families who started 2017 mired in homelessness will spend the holidays in places of their own, equipped with resources and skills to stay that way. Simply put, Renew Community supporters helped them change their lives.
The goal of our 2017 Year-End Campaign is to raise $25,000 by Dec. 31 to go toward changing even more lives in 2018. Would you be willing to make a special year-end donation of $50, $100 or whatever you can afford to unlock doors to stable housing for more families?
Family Renew Community has served more than 1,400 families since 1989, with an estimated 7 out of 10 leaving for stable housing on their own. For 2017 so far, the success rate has been 77 percent.
That means Daryl’s and Fran’s baby girl, born last December into homelessness triggered by job loss and illness, will celebrate her first birthday in the family’s new apartment in Daytona Beach. And after a life of struggling on low wages and squeezing in with relatives, Jessica is a certified medical assistant, supporting herself, her 15-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter in a three-bedroom house in Deltona. Meanwhile, Ashley — clean for more than a year in recovery from an addiction that tore her family apart and left her homeless — is a mother again to her 5- and 7-year-olds, in their own place.
Your help is the key to ending family homelessness. Please click here or use the "Donate" button above to make your year-end gift. Thank you for all you do to help homeless families with children.
