Nashoba Brooks Students Help Homeless Family Find Home

The following press release was submitted to the Concord Patch.

Heading Home, Inc., one of the Boston area’s largest agencies devoted to helping the homeless, announced that it has coordinated its second “Up & Out” move of 2012, helping to move a single mother and her daughter to a new home in Everett, Massachusetts.

Up & Outs are Heading Home’s signature volunteer program, where volunteers help homeless families make the milestone move from shelter to a permanent home. This particular Up & Out offers the young mother her first permanent home since she was 17.

Students from the in Concord took up the challenge as Up & Out volunteers, coordinating the move of the young family from start to finish. The students were busy supplying their apartment with household items and furniture for the kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms, and helping to physically move the family into their home.

It is the fourth such move performed by the school, which has been engaged with Heading Home as volunteers for more than two years. The Up & Out move was spearheaded by Nashoba Brooks teacher Polly Vanasse and Heading Home board member Nancy Solomon. The move demonstrates the effectiveness of Heading Home’s mission to end homelessness in Greater Boston. A photo of the mother and student volunteers is attached.

“Heading Home recognizes the role Up & Out moves play in the lives of our clients, and we are proud of the commitment they are making to stay out of homelessness,” said Wendy Jacobs, deputy executive director/chief development officer at Heading Home. “In Greater Boston, Heading Home provides the homeless with the proper training and programming to become self-sustaining, and the volunteers from the Nashoba Brooks School are hugely supportive of our initiatives to end homelessness in our community.”            

A non-profit organization, Heading Home’s mission is to end homelessness in Greater Boston by providing a supported pathway to self-sufficiency that begins with a home, together with critical services such as life skills, financial literacy, and job training.

The number of volunteers who gave their time to Heading Home has tripled over the last year, due in large part to the overwhelming success of the Up & Out program. 24 Up & Out moves were completed last year and at least that many will be coordinated in 2012, which not only speaks to the extent of the homeless problem in Greater Boston but to the depth of Heading Home’s committed base of volunteers.
           
The perilous housing market and wave of foreclosures have displaced many people, and the issue of homelessness has become absolutely critical in the Greater Boston community. On any given night, there are more than 7,000 homeless people in Greater Boston, including 3,000 children. Sadly, not since the Great Depression have so many families been homeless.

The number of homeless families is staggering and offers a glimpse into the depth of the affordable housing conundrum. In 2011, Heading Home helped more than 2,000 homeless families and individuals in Greater Boston by providing them a place to call home and opportunities for self-sufficiency.