EVERYTHING
FOR YOUR FAMILY
KID
QUIPS
“One night, my 3-year-old asked me if she could sleep in my bed. I told her no. She said, “That’s not fair! Why does Daddy get to sleep in your bed?” READ MORE
Charitable Matters
|
||||
|
Nonprofit steadies the unsteady feet An Orange County nonprofit is ready to take a step toward financial stability – much like the hundreds of residents it helps each year – by spearheading a social- enterprise plan that includes an acre of land. Families Forward, the Irvine-based group that helps low-income and homeless families with housing and other needs, has an acre available to develop inside the future Great Park at the closed El Toro base. For Executive Director Margie Wakeham, this could be the moment to create a revenue-driven, multi-agency arena where several nonprofits benefit from working close to, and with, each other. The first order of business may be to secure more land at the base, but in the meantime, this idea of financial sustainability has taken hold. “Our hope is to leverage that opportunity to get a larger piece of land, and to work with both (homebuilder) Lennar and the city of Irvine in integrating a social service fabric into the Great Park,” Wakeham says. By having other nonprofits pay rent, and by sharing services, the Families Forward idea could be self-fulfilling. “(It could mean) less money in overhead, and a collaboration of services means better services, which means your donation won’t pay only for the rent for X charity, but rather a higher percentage of it will go to the programs. That’s what we see in a big way at the Great Park.” Among the many questions is how many nonprofits would play a role and how the administrative-versus-services component would play out. “What we envision is an administrative hub and then satellite offices, like the spokes of a wheel – a family resource center; a boys and girls type of center that looks after school-age kids; a preschool center; a program that might address senior needs, perhaps incorporating other things like Alzheimer’s, Social Security, veterans’ benefits, so you really bring together those organizations that are looking at the same or similar clientele,” says Wakeham. In the meantime, Families Forward continues to provide several services to needy families, including rent-reduced homes. Presently, there are 14 homes within Irvine, and Lennar is building 14 more homes at the county’s other closed military base, now known as Tustin Legacy, for the nonprofit. The first condominium may be available by the summer. Transitional housing, as it is known, allows families to worry less about outrageous rents and more about getting their financial house back in order. Maximum stays are two years, though Wakeham says the average is 12 months. Single parents, those going through a divorce, those who have lost the lifeblood of child support or a job and those who have sustained a family illness comprise the biggest need. “What’s unique in Orange County is that homeless families are invisible to us; they’re living in garages and in cars and in parks and at the beach, and they are folks that kind of blend in to the perfectly planned Orange County vista,” Wakeham says. “They are not pushing shopping carts; they are not obvious to us. We get probably 500 phone calls in a year where we are looking at families that are homeless for a variety of reasons.” Wakeham, a 35-year Irvine resident, is a former Irvine Unified School District board member. She has been associated with Families Forward for nearly 15 years and has seen the nonprofit move from “a very small kind of organization” to what it is today. FAMILIES FORWARD REACH Irvine-based Families Forward helps low-income and homeless families get their feet back on a financial balance. Through 14 Irvine-based homes, and another 14 being built by Lennar at the Tustin Legacy within the next year or so, the nonprofit is expanding its outreach by providing low-rent opportunities. The tenants are carefully picked to meet several criteria. The goal is to get a family back on its feet in two years or less. In addition, other services include counseling, food, education, case management, life-skills training and rent and utility assistance. Housing assistance is a huge issue for the estimated 35,000 homeless people in Orange County, and the thousands more just on the edge. There is virtually no affordable housing in one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets, where a typical apartment rents for about $1,200 a month. There are several ways to help: • As a volunteer for the nonprofit. • Buy a ticket or a table to the annual fund-raising event. This year, Sept. 16 at the Balboa Bay Club, it is entitled “There’s No Place Like Home.” • Provide individual or group/business donations of food to the nonprofit’s pantry. For information: families-forward.org or call 949.552.2727. |
||||
RSS Subscribe
Digg This ArticleSEARCH THE SITE
