10-Year Anniversary of Community First

In 2013, with a $10,000 grant through the Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation, we launched a pilot program, Community First, to offer homeless families an opportunity to move directly from homelessness and into a home of their own. Prior to this program, Miriam’s House could only offer homeless families our onsite housing program which could only serve 11 homeless families with children at a time as our space on Magnolia Street only had 11 units. We recognized a need to expand as the number of homeless families increased in our community, and we were curious to see if Community First would be the right solution to address the growing need.

In the one-year pilot program, Community First served 7 homeless families by matching them with affordable rental housing and financially supporting their housing costs as they got back on their feet. While in housing, each family worked alongside a Housing Case Manager through Miriam’s House to increase their housing stability in many crucial areas including employment, education, and services for their children.

The pilot program was a huge success—100% of the families not only moved into housing but maintained their housing for years to come through the support they received from our staff. At the conclusion of the pilot, our board and staff overwhelmingly supported fully incorporating Community First into our portfolio of homeless response programs and expanding our efforts. At the time that we launched, our goal was to serve an additional 25 families a year. In this last year alone, 120 homeless families gained housing and supportive services through our Community First program!

This program has become our largest homeless response program and through it thousands of children and their parents have been returned to the opportunity and safety of a home. Children like Peter who shared that he loved having a room of his own for his stuffed animals, Chloe who shared that having a home meant that she was finally allowed to have a pet kitten, or Daniel who shared that he knew he had a safe place to do his math homework each night. These children and many more have had childhoods of safety and stability due to our Community First program.

Our celebration of 10 years of this life-changing program is possible due to the initial support from the Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation and the ongoing support from many individuals, churches, businesses, foundations, and community groups. All of you, together, believe that no child in our community should be without a home, and we are grateful!