April 06, 2008, Palm Beach Post, South county churches plan to help families without homes, by Gretel Sarmiento.

BOCA RATON — Churches are coming together to help the people a weak economy hurts the most: the homeless.

Under the name Family Promise of South Palm Beach County, congregations from about a dozen churches are to establish the first interfaith hospitality network program in the county.

Participating congregations

So far seven churches in Boca Raton and Delray Beach have signed up:

• First United Methodist Church.
• St. Gregory's Episcopal Church.
• St. Paul's Episcopal Church.
• Cason United Methodist Church.
• Chapel of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church.
• St. Paul's Lutheran Church.
• Advent Lutheran Church.

"There are no shelters for families in the county in an emergency basis," said Kathleen Gannon of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Delray Beach. "It will be an important start to really begin addressing the problem."

Since its inception in New Jersey in 1988, Family Promise has established 127 affiliates in 38 states, with the help of more than 110,000 volunteers and 5,000 congregations.

Congregations and volunteers are its foundation.

The plan for the south Palm Beach County operation is to have one congregation open its doors to three to five families about four times a year, one week at a time. The families would be referred to them by social service agencies.

Congregations would provide families with free overnight lodging, meals and hospitality from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m.

"Our objective really is to get people out of the homeless situation," said Henricus Cox, board president. "Not from shelter to shelter. Not from one temporary situation to the next."

So far, seven churches in Boca Raton and Delray Beach have signed up, Cox said. Having originally scheduled the program to begin in March or April, the group is waiting for three more churches to commit. The goal is to have 13 host congregations so the entire year is covered.

A separate facility in Delray Beach will act as a day center where guests can shower, care for their preschool children and look for employment and housing. The center also will provide them with a mailing address and a base for housing and employment searches.

Marjorie O'Sullivan, a Boca Raton Housing Authority board member, has firsthand knowledge of the housing and homeless problems in the county. A couple of weeks ago, hundreds of people showed up outside the authority's office to sign up for housing vouchers. Many had arrived the night before and waited in the parking lot. The unexpectedly high turnout caused neighbors to complain and police to show up with riot gear.

The situation left authority officials wondering whether, how and when the need for housing will ever be met. The newly created organization will target only the homeless.

"It's addressing at least that part of the problem, a pretty urgent part," O'Sullivan said.

In Florida, there are 85,907 people homeless on any given day, and only about 9,000 emergency shelter beds and an additional 13,000 transitional shelter beds, according to the Department of Children and Families' most recent report. The Homeless Coalition of Palm Beach County alone served 1,002 in 2006.

Just last week, West Palm Beach opened a foreclosure center to help homeowners struggling with mortgage payments.

"We've got a lot of families living on the edge," said Gannon of St. Paul's Episcopal.

The Family Promise of South Palm Beach County board will meet at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at St. Gregory Episcopal Church. Gannon said another Family Promise program is being planned that targets the north county area.