We estimate that every year, a total of more than 300 people become homeless in Huntington, Marshall and Starke Counties. The Pathfinder Transitional Housing service provides a home and two years of direct support designed to enable families who are homeless to become self-sufficient. The organization owns some of the homes and leases others. The Pathfinder Transitional Housing service is unique in that it serves individual families at sites scattered throughout communities, rather than at a single, central shelter. In addition to a safe place to live, each family receives support services, such as help applying for food stamps and other benefits, help enrolling in job training programs, help finding appropriate child care services and help with transportation to work, child care and other locations.
Families pay rent based on income.
A portion of what they pay goes into an individual development account that helps them secure permanent housing when the leave the service. Pathfinder Services began providing the Transitional Housing service in 1993 with the aid of a previous HUD matching grant. That grant paid half of the expenses of the Transitional Housing service. The new grant reimburses Pathfinder for all expenses related to support services and half of expenses related to housing. In addition to Transitional Housing, Pathfinder Services provides a wide array of other human services in Huntington, Marshall, Stake and Wabash Counties of Northern Indiana.