Newman Center helps homeless families get back on their feet

IC photos by Laura V. Sausedo

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Saint Catherine of Siena/Catholic Newman Center provides a place for homeless families to make meals, do laundry and take showers through the Family Promise of Salt Lake program. Among those who were served this year were a woman who left an abusive husband (left) and a father with four children whose wife is in the hospital (above)

SALT LAKE CITY- Most of the year, the classrooms at Saint Catherine of Siena/Catholic Newman Center hold teachers and students. For four weeks of the year, however, those same classrooms are transformed into bedrooms for a very important mission: helping the homeless.

This year, four families were sheltered in the Center. Among them were a single mother of two children who was seven months pregnant with a third child; and a father with four kids whose wife was in the hospital.

The program is run by Family Promise of Salt Lake (FPSL), an interfaith alliance helping homeless families achieve lasting self-sufficiency.

"It started in the 1980s in New Jersey," said Mari Fernández, coordinator of the program. "A group of churches got together and realized there was a need [for] somebody to help them out a little bit."

The program has spread primarily on the East Coast; in Utah St. Catherine is the only Catholic parish participating.

The program works in different areas: providing services such as a day center where the families have access to showers and laundry facilities, as well computers, meals and transportation assistance.

The program also offers case management - support to the parents through intensive plans focusing on parenting and financial education classes, while the children are enrolled in schools. Another service is housing retention service, which helps families successfully transition into stable housing.

With the help of Tony Milner, FPSL program director, Elizabeth Marin from Nayarit, Mexico, is in the process of getting her own apartment. "They are very kind; they help us a lot," said Marin, who came to the United States many years ago. She got married in Nevada, but her husband abused her. She had been going from one place to another with her two boys and with another one on the way, until she found FPSL.

"It's a very good program; I feel they open the doors that were closed," Marin said. "They take away the stress. They give you goals to follow."

According to The National Alliance to End Homelessness, more than 100,000 families are homeless on any given night in the United States.

At a February 2009 conference on ending family homelessness, the National Alliance to End Homelessness reported an expected 30 percent increase nationally in homelessness, with as many as 12 million people living "precariously housed," i.e. doubled up in violation of rental leases or living out of motels.

"Programs like this survive thanks to donations and volunteer work," Milner said.

In addition to St. Catherine, numerous other congregations of various denominations throughout the Salt Lake area and in Park City are hosting FPSL families.