History of The Journey & My Father’s House

At My Father’s House, we work with 40 homeless families.  We provide housing (both shelter and transitional) educational classes, family counseling meetings, one-on-one case management, childcare, food and clothing shopping opportunities, office spaces and a computer lab.  Our main goal is to stop the cycle of homelessness and promote independence and an opportunity for families to provide for themselves.

 The Need:

One of our biggest hurdles in working with homeless families is job readiness.  Many times, a young dad or mom will find a job just to lose it in a few days or weeks.  This causes confusion, depression, and hopelessness. When asked why they were let go, most of them aren’t sure.  This makes for a difficult situation in assisting our residents in how to be a good employee and how to handle themselves on the job.  Finding employment for the homeless is the first step in home recovery and sustainability.  My Father’s House goal is to provide housing alongside a job training center.  This addresses not only their homelessness but also their need for job skills for them to come to a place where they can achieve success.

 The Jobs Education Solution:

We are very fortunate to have many donors who supply our residents with gently used clothing, shoes, and necessities they need.  In fact, we have so many donations we simply cannot use them all.  We’re running out of space.  This is why joining our job training center with a store is the ideal solution.  Our residents will learn work ethics and soft skills while getting paid to learn and work.  They will participate in on-going classroom education as well as work in the store, coffee shop and night security.  Learning job skills, people skills, and basic skills we sometimes take for granted.

In our Jobs Program we want to create a place where we can grow and train our families to be hard-working, reliable employees.  Teaching students’ responsibility, honesty, time management and job skills.  The successful outcome will be for our residents to find employment and learn how to support their families.

This project also has a second benefit.  It’s for My Father’s House to have sustainable income.  Even while paying our trainees in the thrift store, we will be able to utilize our excess donations by selling these donated items.   This means, previously, we give away our excess to other thrift stores who do not support us, nor do they give us any monetary benefit.  We could be utilizing these donations as support for our program and families.

Job Readiness Now:

Although we are excited about The Journey being built and providing a place for our students to work, we just can’t wait.  Our families need training now.  Because of the need we are beginning the new program even before the building is completed to help families get back on their feet as they learn to get and keep a job!