1993 HECH's Children's Community Center is launched in February, in space donated by the First Congregational church. HECH's Mortgage Foreclosure Prevention Program begins in response to a number of families facing foreclosure and seeking our assistance. Although the cases are more complicated than housing a family or preventing homelessness, HECH has helped 16 families with this program. Normally, solutions require a reasonable mortgage lender, a family with good prospects of financial recovery, good mortgage to asset value in the property, a relatively low mortgage payment, and networking with other agencies to assemble the necessary resources to accomplish a solution. The overall cost to HECH for this program is less per family than housing a family already homeless.
Fund raising is more difficult.
Created to provide housing for kids living in motels and shelters and give them a better beginning, it quickly demonstrated to the Commonwealth a better and far less expensive alternative to homeless motels and shelters. T he program worked, and in 1992, HECH proposed a Pilot Program, based on their model, for Homeless in Barnstable County that had the Commonwelath's first organized Homeless Prevention problem as a component. H ECH's Children's Community Center, providing cost effective child care, is another successful program for kids and families. The Harwich Ecumenical Council for the Homeless has consistently recognized and successfully addressed community housing needs for five years. E ncouraged by the success of the past, HECH has been developing a program of purchasing its own rental units.