Who is Being Served?

Envision people from all backgrounds. Envision people of all ethnicities. Envision people who have lost their homes or are in danger of losing their homes. Envision families. Envision young children. Envision people of all ages. Envision those who are single and those who are not. Envision those who have completed graduate school and those who have not gone to high school.

Some have lived in cars. Some once had fine homes. Many have struggled perilously close to homelessness for a period of time. Many have been to our city’s emergency rooms over and over. The trend in homelessness is mothers with young children.

This is who we serve. The common factor is that our clients are in crisis, and our goal is to move them to stability.

By helping people through crisis with the services that they need, not only do we give our neighbors an important chance, we also save our community tens of thousands of dollars a year per person helped. Various estimates place the cost of sustaining a person in their homelessness at $35,000 to $150,000 a year, or at ending their homelessness at $13,000 to $25,000 a year (see Austin – American Statesman, We pay a hefty price for homeless, Sunday, March 25, 2012).