Journey to Housing celebrates 10 years of helping families get back on their feet

Special effort of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul assists struggling families with housing, financial literacy, spiritual needs

CANTON — For 10 years, Journey to Housing, a not-for-profit special work of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, has walked alongside dozens of families experiencing homelessness, assisting them in finding not only permanent housing but also financial, emotional and spiritual stability.

The program, which started in 2013 as a response to the “hidden homelessness” crisis in western Wayne County, will celebrate its 10th anniversary on Friday, Sept. 13, at St. Mary’s Cultural Center in Livonia. Although the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has a nearly 200-year history of helping individuals in crisis, Journey to Housing is a unique work of the Metro West district conferences focused on helping families.

While homelessness is often out in the open and easy to identify, many who are struggling, particularly families, suffer in silence, said Connie Borg, executive director of Journey to Housing.

“Families were sleeping in cars during the week. They had jobs so that they could get hotels on the weekend, clean up for the week, and then remain in a car for the rest of the week,” Borg said. “The conference decided that something different needed to happen.

"St. Vincent de Paul is very familiar with helping families with hotel fees and quick, immediate rescue help for homeless people, but that is usually for people on the freeways or where you can see them," Borg continued. "This set of conferences decided to address the problem head-on and try to develop a way forward that would be more systemic for these families.”

Homeless shelters don’t always feel like the best option for families without a home, Borg explained. Men and women are housed separately, and children stay with their mothers.

“They are not able to see each other, and they are separated — they are not able to be a family,” Borg said. “We’ve had married couples who have said to us, ‘One of the reasons we stayed in our car is so we could stay together.’”

Journey to Housing defines homelessness differently than most rehousing organizations, Borg said. They work with approximately 10-15 families a year who might be back and forth between sleeping in a car or a hotel or living with a family member or friend.

The families find themselves without stable housing for a variety of reasons, including medical issues and job loss.

“I was in the medical field for 19 years but still couldn’t make ends meet,” Linda Edwards, a beneficiary of Journey to Housing, said in a video made by the organization. “My daughter and myself, we lived in a hotel — she meant the world to me, and I was willing to do anything. I ended up meeting the directors of Journey to Housing, where they stepped up and changed my life. Journey to Housing can help you tremendously to get you on a path that you didn’t see coming to promote and encourage not just the adults but the children as well.”

Borg said Journey to Housing uses an empowerment model to help ensure families never end up homeless again. This model uses a three-pronged approach: prayer, financial education and counseling.

“Since we are St. Vincent de Paul, we are Vincentians at heart. We pray with our families and for our families,” Borg said. “They all receive counseling through partnering organizations in the community, and they are involved in very intensive financial coaching.”

Financial coaching is mandatory for an hour a week as long as a family is in the program. Borg said families can remain in the program for a minimum of six months up to a year, with the average time being eight or nine months.

“We work with them to get their budgets together, deal with their credit issues and try to set them on the right track so their household budget is in order so that they can afford the housing that they need,” Borg said.

The idea is to focus on financial fitness, Borg added, with the primary goal not just being rapidly housed but also being housed forever. Part of the program is helping families budget and save at least $1,000 in case of emergencies.

“Even when they hit a bump in the road financially, they can fall back on the financial counseling and education and spiritual and mental health that we were able to facilitate because they are very much a part of every single step, whether it is the prayer, counseling the financial coaching,” Borg said.

In addition to the financial fitness, counseling and prayer, which is done in partnership with nuns at St. Linus Parish in Dearborn Heights who pray daily for each family and their intentions by name, Borg said they run quarterly workshops on special topics such as anger management, child safety and resume writing.

Borg said the program's qualifications are also unique. They refer anyone who does not qualify for Journey to Housing to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which regularly helps with rapid housing and with individuals instead of families.

“First, you have to have a job. Second, you have to have at least one child under the age of 18. And then you must be willing to work and or be housed in western Wayne County or one of our bordering communities,” Borg said.

Each family’s timeline for housing placement depends on their progress, Borg said, adding it takes time to teach families how to budget, save and reach the financial benchmarks that the program has in place.

Borg is one of two full-time employees in addition to the board of directors. They rely on volunteers to supplement their team, help with quarterly workshops and move families into new homes.

For now, they are moving families into leases and rentals, but Borg hopes that in the next 10 years, they can help support more families to buy their own homes.

“(When we started), we were looking at what is really going to change this situation — what is going to have a lasting impact on families and, more importantly, the communities in which they reside?" Borg said. “We are addressing the entire person. There are programs that deal with the spiritual and leave it at that, and those that deal with mental and those that deal just with the financial situation, but we know that human beings are bigger than one aspect.”