Friendship Shelter celebrates 30th year anniversary with a grant and a gala at Montage on Oct 27
By DIANNE RUSSELL
Friendship Shelter (FS) commemorates two extraordinary milestones this month, its 30th Anniversary Gala on Saturday, Oct 27 at Montage Laguna Beach and the receipt of a sizable grant from Bank of America.
In 1988, FS, in response to community need, opened its doors to provide year round shelter and rehabilitation to homeless adults. Initially, 18 were accepted into the program. Now, 30 years later, more than 10,000 people have participated in a FS program and each night, in excess of 150 sleep safe and warm. To date, FS has placed 87 clients in permanent housing.
In addition to the emergency shelter on Laguna Canyon Rd and the residential shelter in South Laguna, the Permanent Supportive Housing program (PSH) encompasses two other properties, a residential youth facility in San Clemente which houses 14 and a residential building in Dana Point which houses 16. The remaining 57 are in private market apartments outside of Laguna Beach.
FS has just received an unrestricted B of A grant in the amount of $200,000 to expand its successful work providing permanent supportive housing to help homeless adults become more self-sufficient.
Grant Process
Executive Director of FS, Dawn Price, says, “It was a competitive process, and we were nominated in the spring I believe. They chose about 60 organizations nationally, and we are pleased to be recognized for what we’re doing.”
When asked who nominated them, she says she doesn’t know, “But the City is proud of our work, and some organizations we’ve partnered with have supported us.”
And she admits that some of the questions on the application aligned with their strategic planning process. “They were interested in how we work and collaborate.”
Before Price, who has been the organization’s executive director for 10 years, relocated to Laguna Beach, she had never worked with the homeless, although she served meals in a homeless shelter in Iowa. “I had misconceptions and I understand that,” she says.
Price comes from nonprofit background
Originally from Wisconsin, Price came here from Texas when her husband took the position of Dean of Students at Chapman University. In academic circles, she was known as the trailing spouse, the spouse who doesn’t have a job. “I was executive director of Ronald McDonald House Charities in TX, and I was really hoping to get another director position. I like the work; attending to client and staff needs, dealing with the board, and fundraising. Our son was in high school, LBHS is a good school, and this job was open.”
Beyond the benefit of the funds, Price is excited about other aspects of the grant as well.
“There’s a whole leadership training component for myself and one other staffer, who will be Rick Scott, and we’re both very excited about that. We will train separately and then come together in the last session. I’ve heard wonderful things about this training.” Rick has been at FS 10 years and oversees program managers.
Goal is 30 days in shelter
Friendship Shelter launched its Permanent Supportive Housing program in 2014, which provides a holistic approach to keeping people in housing and off the streets for the long term. Since then, they have established 87 sustainable housing units with 97 percent of residents remaining stably housed, far above the federal requirements and national average for residential retention. Bank of America’s grant will enable the nonprofit to expand this approach with the goal of creating an additional 180 Permanent Supportive Housing units, more than double its current portfolio of supply, across Orange County by 2020. FS covers Southern OC, which includes Irvine, Lake Forest, Laguna Beach and south.
Price explains, “The housing program needs to grow, because without housing, people languish in the shelters. There’s no alternative, nowhere to go from the shelter. We had a gentleman housed last week that had been in the ASL for nine years, sleeping on a mat on the floor. That’s way too long to be in a shelter. Our goal would be that they’d be in a shelter 30 days, in and out, back into housing, back into employment, back into school, into whatever someone left behind. If we can help them reclaim that, it might mean back to where they came from. We’re looking for a swift solution and a good flow through our shelters and into housing. If we do that well, we don’t need all these shelter beds we’re talking about. If that person for 9 years in one shelter bed had been out in 30 days, it would have freed up the bed for others.”
To this end, Price says that once someone enters the shelter, they begin the process of tailoring the housing to the client needs.
“First thing we do when a client comes in here is say, ‘Tell me about yourself. Where did you last sleep? Where did you last safely sleep? Do you have family? What would it take for you to go back there?’”
“We’re always trying to do the simplest thing, and we talk about their history, and we’re able to assess and interview using national instruments, to find out what type of house this person is suited for, and we work toward that housing situation.”
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Submitted photo
Formerly homeless, Samantha in her new apartment
When asked what she thinks is the prevailing misconception in our community regarding the homeless, Price replies, “A lot of people in Laguna Beach don’t know that housing is our biggest program, because none of that housing is in Laguna Beach.”
She continues, “So when we were asked in the application (the grant is unrestricted), our goal is always housing, and the money will fuel ongoing housing efforts. All of our shelters are focused toward housing today. As of January 1, 2018, we’ve changed how we deal with our housing process, approaching it on an individual basis, level and ability. If someone needs to get a job and a room, we work just as hard with that person as someone who comes in with a different set of requirements.”
And it appears there are various types of needs that they address. Overseen by FS, the specialized youth program in San Clemente works with 14 people at a time from 18 to 25 years of age, who have a serious mental health diagnosis (they come through the county mental health system) and help them learn independent living skills while in the program. They are housed in two buildings FS owns that formerly were transitional housing. It was determined that permanent housing would change outcomes better than transitional, and it was the best use of the two buildings.
If by the age of 26, after working with supportive services and through therapy and medication, residents learn to control their mental health, they can go back home, or to a private market rental. Price says, “The whole point is to look at the trajectory for that person, what is the next best step. They age out of the building, but not permanent housing.”
The other dedicated unit of 16 in Dana Point has a staff on site.
The remaining 57 are in private market apartments. “We go in to the manager and see if we can rent one, two or three,” she says. “Once we’re in there, and they see that we’re good managers of our program, they will let us know when they have open units. The permanent housing program is for a specific kind of client, one who has documented long-term homelessness and documented long-term disability, and, therefore, needs supportive services to stay stably housed. We also help people get housed in different ways, help them get a room, an apartment, help people return to family.”
Different types of housing/individual basis/need
Price says, “By looking at the number of chronically homeless people in South OC, based on the last count of homeless, which was January of 2017, if we add another 180 units to the 87 we already have, we could wipe out chronic homelessness, making the shelter stay brief and get them into housing very quickly.”
Regarding the homeless issue, she says, “We do this work whether it’s election year or not. We don’t look for best sound bite, we look for what’s working nationally, and what can we bring to our community from our colleagues across the nation that works. That’s what we’ve been trying to do for the last 30 years, but especially the last five to seven years, which has been a period of learning and discerning and adopting new strategies.”
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Submitted photo
Dana Point
If you missed the Safety Net Tour last month and want to visit the LB facility, Price says, “The best time to see our shelter is early evening, to get a sense of the population we’re working with and how staff interacts with clients. The best way for a person who is interested in what the organization does is to contact me, call us for a tour or sign up to volunteer for evening meal. That’s where you’ll really get a sense of beyond what the building looks like and see what the work looks like.
“I always want the public to see what we do, and learn how we work with our population. Come meet people, look them in the eye, know who we’re dealing with. There’s a lot of misconceptions about what we do and about who clients are. Any time visitors can see the context, it’s beneficial.”
FS currently has a staff of 51.
The grant will also help with the best use of staff time in supporting those in permanent housing. The staff helps with general and specialized needs, helping folks access food programs, go to banks, how to make nutritional food, and other basic life skills. Price says, “There’s a lot of driving around. If we had more dedicated sites like Dana Point, there would be less driving for staff for the additional 180 units. It would be a better and more efficient use of staff time, so that they’re not spending 20 minutes in a car with no client.”
Of those in permanent housing, some people need more support, some only once a month visits. Price says, “We just started a program for those who don’t need ongoing support to get them to the point they can get housing. We’ve just begun to transitioning some clients to the regular Section 8 vouchers, the federal low income housing voucher. But we have an agreement with the County that we’ll continue to support them for a year, that’s one of the things we raise private money for.
“The gala helps with this county program as we’re graduating people out of supportive housing. FS has a year-long commitment to support them with no funding. This unrestricted grant money and gala money helps grow the program.”
Need for infrastructure dollars
Price says, “There’s a need for infrastructure dollars, for training money, as we grow PSH units, as there are more financial transactions every year. We went from 0-87 in four years (2014 - 2018), and it was a big hit on the administrative infrastructure, more HR, more financial. We need to be able to build those up in anticipation of future growth; it is very critical.
“And just freeing up more time for people to be sourcing the apartments and the next way to grow. The opportunities don’t fall in your lap; they grow through building relationships and looking for opportunities and knowing how to assess each opportunity, so that we make the right decisions. We’re lucky that we have some of that provided through volunteers, but we need infrastructure.”
Although FS has a fundraising gala every year, this year is a special one.
Price says, “So much has changed in 30 years, but we’re proud that at our core, we’re still the same organization that opened its doors in 1988. Through all this change, our purpose and approach have never wavered. We were founded to respond to community need, and that remains our focus today.”
The 30th Anniversary Gala will be held on Saturday, Oct 27 at Montage LB. Every dollar raised will go toward Friendship Shelter’s Housing Opportunity Fund, giving the financial agility to respond with confidence to new housing opportunities, to preserve existing housing programs, and to fill housing needs across all programs.
For more information on Friendship Shelter including its gala, go to www.friendshipshelter.org.
Like I said last week, every El Nino – weak, moderate, or strong – has resulted in above normal rain during that event, except for the last one, when we fell far short of the normal season total of 13.95 inches here in Laguna. 
