Kim Guttormson, Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, January 15, 2008
CALGARY -- In its first month, a pilot project that finds houses for homeless families has managed to move six into a place of their own.
With little advertising, the program has attracted 24 interested landlords, and just as many families have found their way onto the waiting list.
"I think a lot of socially conscious folks out there wanted to help but didn't know how," said CUPS family resource centre coordinator Lisa Garrisen. "We've opened a door for them.
Fatima Mohamed and her three sons have been moved into a new home, part of a CUPS program to house homeless families.
Rapid Exit, a two-year pilot program that will cost just under $1 million and is funded through the province and an anonymous donor, hopes to place 120 families over two years.
The last homeless count in 2006 found 145 homeless families in the city, and a recent report by the Poverty Reduction Coalition found as many as 19,000 households are at risk of homelessness.
Most of the families who have contacted the program have either been staying with friends or at shelters.
For Soraya Saliba and her husband Ken Palen, offering their three-bedroom house in Rosscarrock to the program was a way to give back.
"It would've been easy to rent," she said of the house. "But being able to support someone in the community ... we thought it was a good way of giving back to the community."
Fatima Mohamed and her three teenage sons moved into the home on Jan. 1. They had been living in a condo supplied through another CUPS program, which is winding down. In the last weeks, she received a huge utility bill because she hadn't been notified they were no longer included in her rent; her power was cut off.
"The kids had to do homework by candle," said the widow, who brought her children from Sudan in 2003. "Very difficult. Very stressful thing."
Now through the Rapid Exit program, her housing costs are subsidized while she upgrades her education to find work, the reason the family moved to Calgary.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
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