Family Promise of Aiken County’s mission is to assist families experiencing homelessness and help low-income families achieve lasting independence.
The nonprofit does this “through two district paths,” Kendall Buchanan, chairman of Family Promise’s board of trustees, told the Rotary Club of Aiken on Monday during its meeting at Newberry Hall.
“We work with individual families to provide personalized case management to address their immediate crisis, whether that be preventing homelessness or diverting homeless families to safe housing followed by long-term stabilization services,” she said.
In addition, “we offer free educational programs that are grounded in our efforts to prevent homeless before it happens,” Buchanan continued. “The key program that we offer is Keys to Good Tenancy, which was created in partnership with the National Association of Realtors. It helps participants learn the skills to budget for, find, maintain and keep an apartment or house.”
The students who complete the course earn a certificate they can provide to prospective landlords to show that they are working to build the skills needed to be a reliable tenant.
Buchanan said that Family Promise has served more than 80 families, including approximately 180 children, during its first full two years of operation.
And the nonprofit’s goal is to be able to assist even more in new ways.
Family Promise plans to establish “a shelter with case management,” according to Buchanan.
“Thanks in part to a sizable commitment from First Presbyterian Church (of Aiken), we are well on our way,” she said. “We have a shelter committee that is hard at work to make that vision a reality and to fill that need for families that can’t be successfully diverted.”
Buchanan also is expecting Family Promise to be able to offer additional direct financial assistance to families soon.
“We are about $2,500 away from securing a matching grant that was awarded to us last year by Help Us Move In that will really help us keep families in existing housing or get homeless families into new housing that do need a little bit of extra help financially,” Buchanan said.
For more information about Family Promise, call 803-716-8643, email buchanan@familypromiseofaiken.org or visit familypromiseofaiken.org.
