Nonprofit pivots to preventing homelessness

GROWING HOME

Organization — formerly Adams County Interfaith Hospitality Network — offers coaching, food pantry and rent assistance

Client Rossett Useche shops at the Growing Home food pantry on Oct. 1. Growing Home advances equity in food, housing, parenting education and lifelong stability to create lasting change for the future. PHOTOS BY HELEN H. RICHARDSON — THE DENVER POST

Personal shopper Russ Goodlett, center, helps client Rossett Useche shop at the Growing Home food pantry on Oct. 1.

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By Meg Wingerter

mwingerter@denverpost.com

After more than 20 years of directly placing unhoused families in temporary homes, a Westminster nonprofit has switched its focus to preventing homelessness in the first place.

Growing Home opened in 1998 as Adams County Interfaith Hospitality Network. At the time, the suburbs had relatively few services for homeless families, founder Kathleen Drozda said in an interview in 2018. Most people who need housing in the area aren’t chronically homeless, but hit a setback that caused them to fall behind on rent, she said.

Initially, Growing Home placed families in short-term shelters hosted by area churches, and it later added a 20-unit apartment building for people working through the group’s long-term stability program. Last year, the group sold the building to Adams County, which continues to operate it as affordable housing, and completed its pivot to work on prevention, CEO Veronica Perez said.

For a long time, Growing Home had a few well-defined pathways for unhoused parents to work through, Perez said. Now, they tailor coaching to each family’s needs, which might be English classes so parents can get better jobs, assistance signing up for health insurance, or some groceries to help stretch a family’s budget to the end of the month, she said.

Right now, Growing Home can only afford one coach, who works intensively with 25 families at a time, Perez said. Families that completed the two-year coaching program have increased their incomes by 30%, on average, giving them a bit of financial breathing room if they have an unexpected expense such as a car repair, she said.

“We would love to expand that program,” she said, but that would require a sustainable funding source. Growing Home mostly relies on grants, with some funding from individual donors. Retailers and other nonprofits also contribute food for clients.

The group operates a food pantry and provides parenting classes, while referring clients to other organizations when they can’t help directly.

Since the expanded food assistance benefits that the federal government offered earlier in the pandemic ended in early 2023, the number of families seeking help from their food pantry has grown, with about 100 people they haven’t seen before showing up each week, in addition to the regulars, Perez said. Last year, 2,928 households received food at least once, and they’re on track to beat that number this year, she said.

Growing Home can only serve 40 people per day, so most days, some people leave with a list of other resources and information about when they can try again. A few come from as far as Boulder or Arapahoe County, looking for help, Perez said.

The nonprofit also offers small amounts of rent assistance to prevent immediate eviction, Perez said. Federal law limits what they can offer any given family to $5,000 per year, and the rising cost of housing has meant that isn’t always enough, she said. Last year, Growing Home provided rent assistance to 220 families.

“Instead of folks coming to us saying, ‘I need rent for the next month,’ it’s, ‘I owe $2,000 plus the rent for next month,’ ” she said.