Family Promise re-opens

COEUR d'ALENE - Family Promise of North Idaho's interfaith effort to assist homeless families achieve independence is back on.

The 3-year-old local chapter of the national nonprofit Family Promise organization announced Friday that it would begin working with families again Oct. 30. The North Idaho group suspended operations last August to reorganize and focus on strengthening its financial health.

"We're obviously very excited about being able to assist families again," said Jill Jurvelin, board vice president. "We have several families lined up waiting for help."

Before the Family Promise board met Thursday to discuss finances and the nonprofit's future, and with donations still coming in, the group was less than $10,000 shy of its goal to raise $60,000 prior to reopening.

"We didn't raise as much as we'd like to have raised, but we raised enough and saw enough community support that we felt that it was safe," Jurvelin said.

Last weekend's Cardboard Box City fundraiser brought in $12,000. It was the third year Family Promise of North Idaho hosted a homeless encampment reenactment to raise funds and create empathy. This year's event raised four times the $3,000 collected last year.

Jurvelin said their recent fundraising efforts continued to raise consciousness about the plight of homeless families and marshal local resources to assist them.

The "Interfaith Hospitality Network" is the Family Promise model for providing homeless parents and children with support services, food and a temporary safe place to sleep.

The North Idaho network is a nonsectarian coalition of 17 local church partners, with some congregations hosting families and others providing other supports.

"There is a huge cadre, over 500 volunteers, who are involved," Jurvelin said.

Family Promise does not provide housing, but keeps families together by allowing them to sleep in one of the host churches, usually in a Sunday school room, for a week at a time for up to 90 days.

It is the most cost-effective way of providing support to families working to pull themselves out of homelessness, she said.

The group's cost to provide a child a safe place to stay, with his or her family, food and other support services is $20 per day.

The majority of the people they help are children, Jurvelin said.

By July of this year, Family Promise of North Idaho had served 21 kids, nine of them less than six years old.