New Hope for Families partners with Lilly Endowment Inc. to reduce youth homelessness in Indiana
Lilly Endowment Inc. has awarded New Hope for Families a $652,757 grant to support efforts to reduce the length, frequency and impact of episodes of homelessness for school age children in southern Indiana.
New Hope for Families serves children and families impacted by homelessness in Bloomington, Indiana
The program is being funded through Lilly Endowment’s Strengthening Youth Programs in Indiana initiative. The initiative aims to help youth-serving organizations working throughout Indiana improve their abilities to promote the academic, physical and social well-being of young people, ages five through 18.
The funded project is called “New Hope for Hoosier Youth: Ongoing Support for Youth Impacted by Homelessness in Southern Indiana” and will shorten the duration of youth homelessness, prevent recurrences of family homelessness, and strengthen programs to increase long-term family stability. The project will accomplish this through intensive case management for families experiencing homelessness and by providing ongoing monitoring and support for families after transitioning from homelessness to stable housing.
“Homelessness has lasting impacts, especially for children,” reported Emily Pike, executive director of New Hope for Families. “Even brief episodes of homelessness can increase a child’s risk of social, emotional, behavioral and medical problems, and can limit their ability to succeed in school. The best, most effective way to mitigate those negative impacts is to make an episode of homelessness as short as possible and make sure it never happens again.”
“These funds will be a game changer for the children we serve,” Pike continued. “The additional case management will help our families move more quickly through homelessness and into stability and a lease in their own name that they can afford. This partnership will also enable our staff to follow and support our clients, including especially all the children, to ensure that they remain safely housed throughout the remainder of their childhood.”
“I became involved with New Hope in large part because of the agency’s ability to improve the lives of Hoosier children,” explained Sherry Dunbar-Kruzan, president of New Hope’s board of directors. “It is impossible to separate the health and wellbeing of homeless youth from the housing stability of their families. We believe that the single most important thing we can do for youth impacted by homelessness is to help them find stability, starting with a safe home. To minimize the adverse effects on these vulnerable children, we want to ensure their homelessness is brief and non-repeating.”
“New Hope is well positioned to expand support for homeless youth, which is a critical need in our Region,” noted Mary Morgan, director of Heading Home of South Central Indiana. “They have proven their ability to help families in a lasting way. This investment will strengthen their ability to serve youth in our community who are impacted by homelessness.”
New Hope for Families is one of 187 organizations receiving grants through Strengthening Youth Programs in Indiana.
“Indiana’s youth-serving organizations are crucial to the healthy development of children and youth across the state,” said Ted Maple, Lilly Endowment’s vice president for education. “The challenges these organizations have faced in meeting the needs of young people in recent years have made their work increasingly difficult. Lilly Endowment is pleased to support their efforts to strengthen programs and serve more youth more effectively.”
Lilly Endowment launched the Strengthening Youth Programs in Indiana Initiative in 2022 with an invitational round of grants to nine national youth-serving organizations to help them expand and enhance the work of their Indiana affiliates or chapters.
About Lilly Endowment Inc.
Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. Although the Endowment funds programs throughout the United States, especially in the field of religion, it maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana.
About New Hope for Families
New Hope for Families has emerged as a community leader in social services for families in crisis. New Hope is the only place in Monroe County where families with children can find emergency shelter together. New Hope also offers high quality childcare and early learning programs to enable parents to get back to work and to prepare children for success in school.
In 2022, New Hope completed work on a new campus at 1140 S. Morton Street. The new facility increased New Hope’s in-house shelter capacity to a total of 12 families at a time, a 70% increase over its current limit of 7 families at a time. The newly-expanded Early Learning Center has a capacity of 48 children, birth to age 5, representing a 200% increase.
Between July 1, 2011 and April 1, 2023, New Hope provided emergency shelter for 519 children, including 300 school age youth, along with their parents and caregivers.