The Non-profit, Partners Ending Homelessness

Partners Ending Homelessness with Bennita Curtain

Today I met with Bennita from Partners Ending Homelessness.  They have two locations, one in Greensboro and one in High Point.  Bennita started working with people in need when she was young and started volunteering at Open Door, a ministry for people experiencing homelessness.  She has a bachelor’s degree in social work from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, MI.  She has worked with people who have AIDS/HIV and others who are marginalized in our society due mostly to a lack of support from family and friends. 

We talked about a great many things.  I sat in her office at the Greensboro location.  I learned that the number one problem is lack of affordable housing.  Most people experiencing homelessness are there due to a lack of support when times are rough such as losing a job or experiencing a great loss of some kind.  Sometimes people have a criminal background and landlords are not apt to rent to those individuals.  Partners Ending Homelessness works with landlords trying to find a win-win for both tenants experiencing homelessness and for those who have a criminal background.  If one is a sex offender they will have a more difficult time finding housing. 

I learned that Partners Ending Homelessness supports other non-profits.  They are responsible for putting together a collaborative application for all the non-profits involved with them to receive HUD and State ESG funds.  So there is more communication between the different agencies involved in ending homelessness.  There are also more guidelines to help people experiencing homelessness by offering the best service.  One such guideline is a standardized measure to see who qualifies the most for services.  These so called tough cases now receive the most support whereas before 2012 easier cases may have gotten priority.  Easier cases being that maybe there was not a mental health issue, substance abuse issue was not a problem, or simply that they just needed help with the first months rent and then would be on their way.

Partners Ending Homelessness also works with veterans.  Through a Grant Per Diem program veterans are able to get up to two years in temporary housing.  This program also helps with substance abuse and helping veterans who were in the hospital to a home. 

Partners Ending homelessness focuses on advocacy for people experiencing homelessness such as helping to train police to be sensitive to people they may meet on the street who are homeless.  This program is run through the Sandhills Center.  

The community began with a Ten Year Plan to end homelessness that was amended in 2015 now called Opening Doors, which is a federal strategy to end homelessness, by working together with various agencies.  There is also a Continuum of Care where each week non-profit agencies get together and overview all the cases that they are working on to see how to best move forward for individuals experiencing homelessness.

Housing First is a priority.  This means that individuals do not have to be sober to be housed.  It is the idea that once someone is housed and safe they then can begin to enroll into sobriety programs and start job hunting. 

Partners Ending Homelessness also offers Welcome Home Baskets for those recently moved into a new dwelling.  Items such as toiletries are offered in these baskets.

Currently there are about forty vets experiencing homelessness in Greensboro.  About four to five hundred people are in shelters and about thirty people are chronically homeless.  Ten of those chronically homeless peoples do not have a voucher for a place to stay and may be experiencing mental illness.  Over the past four to five years about two-hundred people have been housed in Greensboro.

Bennita is also a member of the Tiny Home non-profit project.  There are six tiny homes in Greensboro and the program is expanding to High Point where there is a ten house tiny home project underway.

Phillips Program was instrumental in ending homelessness by offering a grant for those who are most in need and considered chronically homeless.  Rapid Rehousing is an instrumental group as well who offers wrap-around-services with case management and short term goals.  Permanent housing is for those who are chronically homeless and is a five plus year program.

In 2012 the definition of homelessness was clarified to mean those who are living in a shelter or those living on the street or in a place unfit for human habitation.  Those who live on a friends couch or floor are not included in the count but may be able to qualify for Section 8 housing vouchers.

Thank you Bennita for spending time with this writer and sharing your experience with people who are experiencing homelessness, I really appreciate it!  I look forward to seeing you at the Memorial Walk for those who died while homeless in December.