Genesis Home Executive Director O n any given night in North Carolina, there are nearly 3,000 people living in homeless shelters, transitional housing programs, and battered women's shelters throughout the state. Each night in Durham, it is estimated that there are up to 800 homeless men, women, and children-nearly 200 more people than the capacity available to serve homeless people. Genesis Home fills a unique role in the Durham community. Our program helps families overcome homelessness and poverty by providing a safe, supportive environment and encouraging families to build on their strengths. Through our combination of transitional housing and child care, we are able to move families along a continuum of housing services taking them from having no place to live, to helping them find an independent living situation in the community.
Family homelessness is usually the end state of a tragic series of events.
For one homeless mother these events may have begun with childhood abuse, for another when she fled a violent husband, and for yet another, when she started using drugs. An unpredictable and devastating economic crisis may have tipped one family from poverty to desperation. A second family may have become homeless after a prolonged, relentless decline of scarce financial and social supports. The stories have many beginnings, different turning points, and varied long-term outcomes. Many do not have a high school education, and all enter the program with incomes below the poverty level and homeless.