photo by: Contributed photo

Claas Ehlers

Homeless families in America are still facing many of the same barriers they have in the past, said Claas Ehlers, chief executive officer for Family Promise, a national organization that aims to help families find permanent housing.

Ehlers, who recently visited Lawrence for the local chapter’s 10-year anniversary, said the common barriers include the costs of transportation, child care and health care, which prohibit families from being able to afford housing.

Family Promise of Lawrence is a local nonprofit that works with local congregations to provide temporary and subsidized housing, food, counseling and training for local homeless families, aiming to help them find permanent housing. The national organization has been serving homeless families for more than 30 years.

Ehlers said the local chapter typified what he believed a Family Promise affiliate should strive to be.

“They just do an incredible job serving the needs of the community,” he said of Family Promise of Lawrence. “They also engage with a large swath of the community in an effective way.”

Joe Reitz, founder and board member of Family Promise of Lawrence, said the organization celebrated 10 years of service at the end of September.

Although groups such as Family Promise are working to help homeless families and the economy has improved in recent years, Ehlers said the national rate of homeless families has not improved much yet.

Technically, family homelessness has fallen nationwide, but Ehlers thinks the drop mainly has to do with the federal government tightening the definition of “family homelessness” rather than actually putting more families in homes.

“A mom who is spending 80 percent of her salary on a motel room because she can’t get housing would not qualify as homeless,” he said of the changed definition.

Ehlers said family homelessness is still a national problem because job wages have not increased consistently with the job growth the country has seen since rebounding from the recession.

He said many families were finding employment but were not receiving a living wage.

“We see a lot of families, yes they are able to get employment, but can’t afford housing,” he said. “A lot of families are still trapped, even with a better employment scenario, with far too little income to afford housing and other living expenses.”

Ehlers said he is not specifically knowledgeable about Lawrence’s issues, but he has noticed college towns have had problems finding housing because it’s more lucrative for landlords to rent to college students than to low-income families. But he said he was proud to see the work Family Promise of Lawrence was doing for its community.

“If we could get all of our Family Promise affiliates to address the issue and engage the community like Family Promise of Lawrence, we would make a lot more progress ending family homelessness,” he said.

Over the 10 years, the organization has helped more than 200 families with 85 percent of the families graduating from the program finding permanent housing for at least two years, which is when the group stops following up.

Reitz said 38 congregations were now involved in helping Family Promise of Lawrence, including congregations of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

“People have put aside their theological difference and focused on how to help these families,” Reitz said. “That’s been really good for Lawrence to get congregations of every possible stripe to work together on a problem and see it be successful.”

Reitz said the local chapter was hoping to increase the programming and services for the community. Currently the organization offers weekly classes for families focusing on practical topics such as good parenting, healthy cooking practices and how to maintain a budget.

He said the organization also wanted to provide better services helping not only homeless families deal with the experience of trauma from being homeless, but also helping the staff who experience secondary trauma.

“One of the things it’s helped us do as a staff is not suffer the kind of burnout that lots of nonprofits have because staff members or volunteers get overwhelmed from the trauma,” he said.

Reitz said he was proud of the work of the program and he was grateful for the community and the congregations’ support.

“I’ve been involved with a lot of things in my years and this is by far the best thing I’ve ever been involved in,” Reitz said.