TAMPA – With the mission to break the cycle of homelessness in the community, the Homeless Empowerment Program (HEP) has been providing housing and support services for individuals, families and veterans since 1986.
The eight-acre Clearwater campus consists of family shelters and veterans housing for more than 400 individuals facing homelessness or financial difficulties daily. In a year, that number goes up to 1,600 individuals, according to President and CEO Ashley Lowery.
As a way to meet the needs of all residents, HEP offers three types of housing for those in need.
During the first length of stay, also known as emergency housing, individuals and families are provided with free housing for a period varying from 90 to 120 days. If there’s a need for additional housing support, HEP offers transitional housing, which varies from six months to two years.
In addition, HEP offers permanent supportive housing options for residents who decide to stay longer in the program. As a way to cover each resident’s living expenses and help them budget for their future, HEP charges a rent fee of 30% of the resident’s income.
About 98% of the families that leave the permanent supportive program move into independent housing within the community, according to Lowery.
“One of our biggest goals at HCP is not just to provide short term housing and care, but to provide a long term road to success,” Lowery said. “The end goal is to get them out, independently living in the community.”
Besides housing, HEP provides its residents with different support services to help them become self-sufficient and improve their quality of life, ranging from dental and wellness clinics to work development and job training centers.
“We try to provide an answer for anything that somebody might be struggling with,” Lowery said. “If there are eight different reasons for homelessness, we try to provide eight different solutions to tackle those.
As a way to help individuals enter the workforce, each resident participates in an employee survey to showcase their backgrounds as well as interests. Once the survey is submitted and evaluated, they might be exposed to job training opportunities based on their interests and availability as well as education development.
“By addressing the issues that are causing homelessness, homelessness will resolve itself,” said Lowery. But we have to get to those the issues that are causing you to be homeless in the first place.”
Under a partnership with Pinellas County Schools, HEP provides residents with the opportunity to further improve their education within their field of interest.
“We’re not just throwing in somebody into housing and assuming that their homelessness issue is resolved,” Lowery said. “We’re providing the backup that they need to maintain that.”
For Lowery, HEP’s success would not be the same without the help of volunteers.
From serving food to residents to painting the exterior of a building, HEP relies on over 2,000 volunteers every year. The work done by volunteers saves HEP about $1 million each year, according to Lowery.
Lowery believes that volunteerism helps to break the stigmas surrounding homelessness within the community.
“We try to encourage our residents to volunteer with our volunteer groups so that they have an opportunity to work alongside our residents,” Lowery said. “Not that our volunteers have any preconceived notion of what homelessness looks like, but it helps to reinforce the fact that homelessness can happen to anybody.”
As a registered 501(c)(3) charitable organization, part of HEP’s funds are based on donations, grants and government support. Besides the government’s support, Lowery said the majority of donations are made up of individual donors and family foundations.
“We wouldn’t be here without our donors and the people that contribute generously to the program,” Lowery said. “It costs us roughly $2 per meal per person. So a $10 donation makes a huge difference to the people that we serve. Every little bit counts.”
Through helping families and individuals in need, Lowery believes the key to breaking the cycle of homelessness is by creating an impact on the future generation.
“A way to break the cycle of homelessness is by impacting families with children because, a lot of times, children fall into a cycle of family poverty,” Lowery said. “It’s generations of poverty and generations of homelessness, and they kind of repeat the actions that they see their parents do.
“If HEP can intervene and help the families to become more financially stable, help them secure job training and long term employment, then the children will ultimately benefit from that and improve the next generation.”
