Digital Wrap-Up
Digital Wrap-Up takes listeners on the journey of a digital marketing agency from startup to success. Episodes follow Harden Digital and Design CEO Riley Harden each week as he continues to grow his business. The Digital Wrap-Up covers many different topics, including the work Riley does for his clients, different tips and tricks he uses to grow his business and a mix of fresh social media news/tips. This podcast is perfect for small business owners looking to follow along as another small business owner (Riley) goes through the ups and downs of growing a business. Social media managers looking to stay current on different best practices and new features will also find this podcast informative. Come join us for an exciting journey in the small business world!
Digital Wrap-Up
Uniting for Change: Tackling Homelessness Family Promise
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Imagine discovering that in the heart of affluence lies a hidden struggle with homelessness. Nancy Ramsey, Executive Director of Family Promise of Hamilton County, joins us to unravel this paradox, shedding light on the challenges that families face in wealthy communities. Our heartfelt conversation delves into how her organization is not only providing shelter but also legal support and stability services to those in need in Hamilton County. Nancy's personal stories serve as a powerful testament to the strength and resilience of the families they aid and underscore the importance of community-based solutions.
Collaboration is the lifeblood of nonprofit work, and in this episode, we celebrate the spirit of collective action in Hamilton County, Indiana. By bringing together nonprofit leaders, including the Good Samaritan Network and HAND, we uncover the incredible impact of partnership on combating housing insecurity. We bring you a moving success story of a family who defied the odds, fought eviction, and not only found stable housing but also became advocates for the community, all thanks to the support network provided by Family Promise and their New Lease on Life program.
Lastly, we discuss the vital role each one of us can play in ensuring housing security within our communities. Highlighting the "The Future Begins at Home Breakfast" event, we invite you to listen to real stories from those who've overcome housing challenges. We also explore the various avenues through which you can lend your support, whether it's through volunteering your time or making donations. Plus, discover how companies like Harden Digital and Design are leveraging digital services to amplify the missions of nonprofits, making it clear that in the fight against homelessness, everyone has a role to play.
Learn more about Family Promise of Hamilton County: https://www.familypromisehamiltoncountyin.org/
Welcome back to another episode of the Digital Wrap Up. My name is Riley and I'm the host and I'm the CEO of Harden Digital and Design. I've got a really exciting episode coming up for you today. It's an interview with one of the non-profits that I've been working with for several years now. They were actually one of my very first clients whenever I opened Harden Digital three and a half four years ago now.
Speaker 1:So we're continuing with the theme of non-profits we love for the month of January. So it was just a great time to have Nancy Ramsey, the executive director of Family Promise of Hamilton County, in the studio. I think she's actually the very first guest that we've had come into the studio since we've had the studio up. So that's something that I just kind of made the realization right now when recording this. So we talk everything about the mission of Family Promise, how people can get involved, the misconception of homelessness in Hamilton County, because Hamilton County is one of the wealthier counties in the state and in the entire country, but homelessness is an issue that still runs large in Hamilton County. So just a really good interview. Nancy is very passionate about the work that she does and it trickles down to everybody within the organization, there's so many great volunteers and donors alike, so I think you'll really love this interview, and let's just go ahead and jump into it. All right, nancy, welcome to the digital wrap up. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm well, thank you, how are you?
Speaker 1:Doing well. It's been a long time coming. I've been wanting to do this I don't know if I've told you this, but have you on the podcast for a while. But this is something that we are focusing on in February is highlighting the non-profits that we love, and Family Promise is one of those. I've been working with you for almost three years now and gotten to learn a lot about the mission, of what you guys do, and had some personal connections with Carly, obviously so excited to have you here. Let's go ahead and jump into it and first just tell me a little bit about what Family Promise of Hamilton County does.
Speaker 2:Okay, and, as you said, family Promise of Hamilton County is a local nonprofit based in Noblesville that works with families who are experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity in general, which can range anywhere from eviction facing eviction to paying more than 60% or so of your bring home income for rent and utilities.
Speaker 2:We do this in a number of different ways, by a bunch of different programs. We do provide shelter for families that don't have someplace to stay and we also have a diversion program, which is kind of meeting families at the door of shelter but finding creative solutions for a time while we look for other options such as staying with friends or family or something for a short term. We do attend eviction court every week so that we can meet with families that are facing that and see if we can't coordinate between our community partners and ourselves ways of taking care of whatever the arrears are, whatever the issue is, in order to keep them housed. And then we have a stability program which really anybody that's been through one of our earlier programs is invited to join the club if you will, and that's kind of the ongoing workshops and education and case management if you will, coaching that goes along and they stay engaged with us anywhere from a year to two years after they've been through a program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's not just finding people homes. There's a lot more that goes into the whole process and system.
Speaker 2:Because it's truly we want to help them thrive in the community, right In the community, where they want to live, work, learn and play. So it's really ongoing stability services in order to make sure that they're thriving in that community.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So before we talk more about all the great work, they do tell us how you got involved in Family Promise. What made you want to become the executive director, past experiences or how did you come about that? Because I know you were the founding executive director.
Speaker 2:I was the first First yeah.
Speaker 2:We had a great group of members of different churches in Hamilton County that decided they wanted to be a part of the solution of homelessness and kind of came together and worked for a couple of years to think about what they wanted that to look like. We are actually an affiliate of a national organization Family Promise but as an affiliate we're our own 501C3. So we get to tailor the programs and offerings that we do specific to our location. So anyway, there's a group of interested people that decided to move forward with this and then they hired me as the first DD. But I was raised in Hamilton County, I bleed black and gold all the way from the Millers to the Boilermakers.
Speaker 2:And I truly love my community and this was a way of giving back to my community. It's also I grew up on a farm and sometimes farm years or lean and not, so I've experienced some issues with not necessarily poverty, but you scraped to get by and so forth, and I know there's a lot of longtime families that have lived in Noblesville particularly that continue to struggle or have had struggles. So it was very important to me to be able to represent them and help them find solutions in our current environment where we live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and kind of along those same lines, the conception or, I guess, the thought of Hamilton County. It's one of the richer counties in even the country, right, and people are like, oh, this is not an issue in Hamilton County.
Speaker 2:We don't have homeless people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so much money in Hamilton County? How can that be a thing but you even kind of just mentioned? It's not always just people out on the streets, but it's the people two to three months prior to eviction that are struggling that come. Can you talk about why that's such a big misconception that Hamilton County is kind of immune to this problem?
Speaker 2:Well, our homeless look different than what you might expect or what you see on commercials or whatever. Homeless has a number of different definitions. For instance, one of them is if you're doubled up with another family or you're living with family all under the same roof. Those are technically considered under the McKinney-Vento Act, are considered homeless families. They don't have a stable, secure place to live.
Speaker 1:So you're talking like families that are squeezing in two or three families under a two or three bedroom home.
Speaker 2:Exactly exactly, which, in fact, is actually breaking the lease of the person who was signed on the lease because you're only supposed to have so many people.
Speaker 2:So that's a detriment to the family who's staying there as well as the one that's leasing, because they could be evicted for breaking the lease. But sometimes that's the only way that people can afford to be together is two different families doubled up, or everybody's all the kids are with their kids are living with grandma because she's got someplace to stay. So that's kind of a misconception as, oh, we don't have a homeless issue here in Hamilton County. Well, we do, and then we also. The bigger issue, as you noted, is the fact that everything rental rates are so expensive I mean even to make I just looked it up before I came up here there's a one bedroom going for a 1600 a month, which isn't unreasonable in Hamilton County, right, and you would need to make $22 an hour on a full-time job just to be able to afford the three times the rent rule that they kind of do, and that's not feasible.
Speaker 2:The majority of the families that we serve are single moms raising kiddos. They have great jobs, they're working, but they just can't. They're not earning $22 an hour. They might be the medical assistant at your doctor's office, right, I mean they're filling or even the new, which is a great, great job and great career, but it's just still the wages and the pay is still catching up to Hamilton County prices.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. And then you throw in the cost of childcare. There's a ton of barriers to being able to afford housing in Hamilton County. Childcare and transportation are the two biggest ones.
Speaker 1:And what do you see as like factors that lead to people going down the path of becoming homeless or you know? Is it job loss, is it? A lot of times it's kind of circumstances that they can't necessarily control over.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it can be a family breakup, a divorce situation, it can be a job loss. It can be a job loss simply because you have two kiddos and they can't go to school when they're sick and there is no sick care for kids. So you've got to and, quite honestly, a lot of these families don't have that we serve, don't have a support system. They don't have a big family that can, quite honestly, most of grandma's work nowadays, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Grandma's have to work to pay bills too, and therefore they're not the backup solution for childcare when a kiddo's sick. So it's a compounding of all of those things. Or it can be as simple as a $400 car repair just to get back and forth to work, but all of a sudden you can't get there or you don't have your living paycheck to paycheck and you don't have that $400. You have to have the car to get to work. So now, what are you going to pay? You're going to pay utilities or are you going to get your car fixed? Yeah, and that's a trade off, a true, real trade off that a lot of these families have to make.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and things like that just kind of snowball on top of each other. One thing leads to another and then now it's a month down the road and all of a sudden this family that was not necessarily well off but they were managing, is now in this situation where they're getting evicted. They have no idea what they're going to do, and that's where family promise steps in.
Speaker 2:Exactly. They face eviction. They're going to you still have to pay what you owed for the place you got evicted from. In addition to now, you need to deposit in first month's rent at a new place, if you can even find a new place. There's so many landlords, apartment complexes and so forth that won't rent to families who have an eviction on their record. So we kind of work with them on that to make sure that if they've paid it off then we can work with the court to get it sealed so that it's no longer on that record and then they can get another place.
Speaker 1:And that's things you work with the individuals to help with. Absolutely. I can't imagine people who aren't living this and doing this every day know how to approach the court to get records sealed for things like this Exactly.
Speaker 2:I mean there's a lot of resources. We don't do everything, but we know how to connect. And that's probably what I feel is our greatest strength is knowing what's out there and available to help families and making that connection and helping them walk through that in order to kind of take care of that challenge.
Speaker 1:So what does it look like for a single mom who just experienced the things we're talking about and they reach out to Family Promise for the first time, kind of what are the steps in determining what you can do to help, what they need, and kind of then, what you can give them in resources or because not everybody just goes into a shelter that you have or anything like that Our shelter space is limited of course.
Speaker 2:So yeah, the first thing is a phone call and talk with our intake coordinator, amber, and she kind of gets some details. What is it you're looking for? Do you need shelter? Are you behind in rent? Are you facing eviction? So we kind of sort through that. How many kiddos do you have?
Speaker 2:Now that is one thing, that we serve families with children under the age of 18. So if you're kind of a single, you know we have other resources, other referrals we can make for you. But we do serve families with children. So we kind of go through that and determine which advocate it would be best to work with through the number of different programs. And then it's a matter of kind of have that first conversation with an advocate. We invite you in. We kind of work through a look at your budget, look at your spending, talk through all of those things, determine we also work very closely with our township trustees and that we kind of try to partner together when we can pay some back rent and so forth to help stabilize a family. But then it's an ongoing process. It truly is. It's like, okay, let's come back in next month, let's look at your budget again. How did you do?
Speaker 2:Did you overspend in a certain area, and we use a number of different either budgeting apps or the cash envelope system or something like that, because that truly those life skills, those kinds of things aren't being taught anywhere, and to talk about budget or spending plans or whatever that might be is kind of a concept that they haven't been exposed to. So we get to be kind of that accountability partner too and move forward through building the stability.
Speaker 2:So let's get out of the hole that we might be in right now. We hope to instill. Well, that's what we try to do is instill hope in that family. Yep, we can get through this. We can develop a plan together and here's how we're going to go forward with that.
Speaker 1:So you can. If there's an individual out there who's, you know, on the brink of becoming homeless or really struggling to find out what to do next, but there has to reach out because you know, it is kind of a there's a stigma. Yeah, there's a stigma to it, but what would you say to those people in terms they're nervous to reach out because it's going to make them look bad. They don't want people to know. How do you get those? Or how would you convince those people that just reach out. We're here to help. We're not going to judge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we're definitely try to try to instill that non judgment because we've all kind of been there. Everybody that works at Family Promise has been there at some point in time. The other thing is everything we do is confidential, so you know, there's no sharing of names or anything like that, unless you agree on a form right?
Speaker 2:This is yeah, you can talk to the trustee on my behalf or something. But the other thing is it's we kind of look at it as a life coach. You know there's so many people out here that have a wellness coach and those different. So we're a life coach. We're just here to walk alongside. There's not anything you can tell us in a story that we haven't heard before, which means we have experience in helping people overcome those barriers, right? So it's all things that we can work together through our community support as well.
Speaker 1:And you talk about the community. How much are you involved with other community organizations, other partners? How much do you rely on them?
Speaker 2:to not necessarily rely, but we do rely on work with them. We do rely on them. Amondon County, Indiana, has an extensive group of nonprofits that all work together. The executive directors all get together monthly to talk about what's going on and how we can support each other in serving the community. For instance, we get referrals from the youth assistance programs. They're working with the kiddos within the schools and find out that there's some struggles at home maybe, and so they will refer families to us, Good Samaritan Network and ourselves. Just to mention, if you work back and forth very closely, we work with HAND, which is a housing developer nonprofit housing developer in Hamilton.
Speaker 2:County for the housing to try to solve the issue. We're not just here for a Band-Aid, but we're actually here to help solve the housing issue as well. So there's a number of agencies, organizations that we all work together to make sure that we're taking care of it holistically. We focus on the housing piece, but let's make sure, if you're having some struggles with mental health, we have a nonprofit that we can refer you to to kind of work on that side as well. So it's hugely important that we all partner together to take care of these families.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome and I know we work with a couple of nonprofits, especially Good Samaritan Network, and there's tons of intermingling and collaboration that goes on. I know the other Nancy in Hamilton County, nancy Chance, plays a big part in all of that.
Speaker 2:She's the godmother of nonprofits in Hamilton County.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's amazing yes, and somehow she's still going. So let's turn to something more positive and talk. Can you tell us maybe a favorite success story, or one family or one individual? That kind of came in that really turned their life around, or family promise had a big part in kind of transforming their life, moving forward. There are a lot. So, I think without mentioning names. I know, of course, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:I think I'll go back to one that we served very early on. There's a couple of them, maybe I get sneak to it, yeah, but one that we served really early on. We were fortunate enough to be able to use some county owned homes that were going to be demolished in the future, like recently, for road work and housing or for roadways, and so we were allowed to use those. So we kind of use those as a shelter, transitional type housing, and we had a two parent family with four kiddos that were staying in one of those and we just worked with them through that. We also then contacted I think they were within six to eight months in that type of a housing and then we worked with a private landlord that we have developed a partnership with and he was willing to take them even though they had an eviction on their record.
Speaker 2:So he took them in. We supplemented their rent for a year just a tiny bit, but it was just enough that they could afford it without stretching them too much.
Speaker 2:He got market rate for his rental, it's what he wanted to get and in the meantime you know he thought he was taking a chance. Well, we walked beside this family the whole way. We met with them in the rental home once a month, reviewed budget, talked about anything else. They've now signed a lease on their own to extend for another two years. Quite honestly and it's really cool because we just met with them they were actually the beneficiaries of. We had a great holiday thing that Mercantile 37 did and they built a table They'd had a handmade table and delivered it to this family and they were excited because they could they get together with their friends for dinners and so forth. But they actually teach some of the budgeting skills they share some of the budgeting things that they learned with Family Promise to their friends and they had a new table that they could all gather at and do those things right.
Speaker 1:So they're advocates of you. Now they're quote-unquote influencers, in a way, of what you're doing Exactly.
Speaker 2:And it's not so much it's what Family Promise taught us. It's just.
Speaker 2:This is what we learned, and we want to make sure that we can share it with those others because it's made a. I mean, they both manage and work at a daycare now and you know they're just and they actually that daycare actually did a drive, a food drive, at Thanksgiving and they delivered like 300 plus canned good items to Family Promise. So it's just a great story and it's true resilience. You know that they just dug their heels and said, no, we're gonna do this, we're gonna make a difference for our kids so our kids have a better life. That's awesome, incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in the future. I know some things are changing, we don't have to talk about that, but what are the goals for Family Promise, you know, this year and next five years? To kind of help this what seems like never-ending problem in Hamilton County?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, quite honestly, just through a recent housing study a year or so ago, it would take us 286 years to build enough housing for the demand that we have right now. Like that's insurmountable, right. So we keep tipping away at it.
Speaker 2:A bit at a time. Excuse me, but some of the things that Family Promise is trying to do is meet the need given the market conditions we have. So I talked a little bit about we have a program called New Release on Life and it's basically buying down the rent for a family, you know two to three hundred dollars a month, which takes the landlord again as gets his market rate. Yeah, we kind of make up that difference between what's affordable and what they're charging for that specific family and then we continue to work with them over the year to either skill up, maybe get some certificates or something through Ivy Tech or one of the other employer-based programs, find a different job, you know, maybe a better vehicle, you know just all the things it takes to be thriving in a community. So we continue to work with them on that.
Speaker 2:So I think that you'll see that program grow, similar to like a voucher program, if you will. But it's not government-based, it's just going to be solely private, individual based. Your family can support this family somehow through Family Promise and the services we provide. We're working on that, fingers crossed. We received, we were part of a application for a low income housing tax credit property and we were awarded that for a 51 unit townhome, three bed, two bath townhome project in Noblesville. So they're tying up the loose ends and working through all of that. But we're a part of that. We're the service provider as well, so that any family that would live within that community would benefit from getting some of the stability club services, the coaching and things that we provide.
Speaker 2:So we're hopeful. Yeah, we'd appreciate everybody's prayers about that one to come that one to come to fruition.
Speaker 2:We do have, if you don't mind a little plug here, yeah, go for it. We have a the future begins at home Breakfast coming up on Friday, march 22nd. Details are on our website, but it's 830 at the Delaware Township Community Center and it's basically going to be a conversation about what we're talking about right here. What does housing insecurity look like? In Hamilton County?
Speaker 2:We actually have a wonderful we call them our graduate advisory panel, but it's a group of graduates of any of our programs that are going to talk about how they came to the situation when they were in, what it looks like, the difficulties that they might have, what they've learned through working through programs and what they want everybody else to know about what housing insecurity looks like. So I want to encourage anybody that's interested in learning. It's really more about the status of housing in our community for everybody that lives there, whether you work in the doctor's office or you're a first year teacher or you're a firefighter or you work at Starbucks. We should provide housing for everybody in the community. Somehow we should have that available to them. So that's kind of what the discussion is going to be and you're going to actually hear it from folks who have experienced the different situations that we talk about.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Hopefully it's an eye-opener for some that you know, there are wealthy people that have never probably even thought about this, and there may be those same people that would find the I don't know how to say it, but they might be inspired to get involved, whether it's donations or volunteering or offering some of the resources they might not be using or taking advantage of anymore.
Speaker 2:Or even helping spread the word about what housing insecurity looks like, so that we make sure that that's a welcome. You know housing for all socioeconomic sectors of our community, so that's always welcome is having the discussions and realizing that it's important for that.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So, aside from the upcoming breakfast, how else can people help? How can people get involved? Volunteer I know I've had this conversation with Carly before, but we used to push volunteers. But volunteers, once you get so many, then it's like you have to coordinate all those volunteers. Volunteering is great to an extent, but how else can people get involved? I know you have multiple fundraisers throughout the year too.
Speaker 2:We do we do? I would be remiss. We have the new breakfast, which will be an annual thing. We have our family reunion. It happens in July, right before school starts, and that's where everybody just comes to Forest Park in Noblesville. We might have some ice cream, do something fun like that. And it's donors, it's families we've served.
Speaker 2:We're always there together and the beauty of it is you don't know who's who. Yeah, that's awesome. And then we have our sixth annual Topgolf event. It's coming up Sunday, november 3rd, so that's always been a fun thing. We've started that since we began here and it's a fun event too, so those events are available. You can always hit our website to look for other things as well.
Speaker 2:Volunteers are hard.
Speaker 2:We have changed our model and, quite honestly, for those that don't know, family Promise started out as a rotational shelter model which meant they would stay for a week at a time at different churches and then the volunteers at that church would help provide the hospitality, the meals, all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Covid hit, of course, and so we had to revamp what our model looked like, so we don't have as many engagement opportunities for volunteers as we used to. We're trying to rebuild that in maybe more of a mentoring type program where you just meet with a specific family or a single mom or something, just to give them a have coffee once a month or something like that. So we're trying to develop some opportunities like that. The other thing we do, since we have the stability club the members of that receive a quarterly stability kit, so it's going to have toilet paper and paper towels and cleaning supplies, all the things that are super expensive to add to your grocery bill when you're just trying to buy groceries to feed your family and then you've got all these other things.
Speaker 2:So we take donations of those and we put them into kits and then we have volunteers that actually deliver those out for us. So that's another way to be involved and maybe create a drive at your church or your other organization or something. It's like, hey, we're going to collect paper towels or something. So there's always that opportunity. You can always call the office at 317-774-5196 and talk with Amber and she'll be able to kind of connect that way with what our needs should be.
Speaker 1:Awesome, yeah Well, any last words, any final plugs, anything you were nervous about coming on but I think it's good You're pro about all things. Family promise.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I appreciate the time to come in and actually talk about it. If you don't mind, can I share a couple of numbers?
Speaker 1:just so people get the idea.
Speaker 2:Because I just did our census for 2023. So I just wanted to say we served 304 children in our core program, so that would be the shelter, diversion, prevention and stability. We took in over 462 crisis calls, meaning we answered the phone 462 times in 2023 from people needing help with either I'm homeless and need someplace to stay, or I can't pay my rent and I'm going to be evicted. That's astounding number to think about for affluent Hamilton County, Indiana.
Speaker 1:So more than probably one and a half-ish per day. Yeah, we're counting the days that you're not open.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. So I think sometimes we can talk about it, but you think, oh well, that's maybe 10 or 15 or no, it's an astounding number and we can't serve all those, unfortunately right, yeah, but again it's the connections to other resources Exactly.
Speaker 2:They don't ever call and at least not get another referral or a resource or something. We may not be able to serve you in shelter Our shelter's full but here's some other places you can call. And have you thought about this? Or I do have many friends or family, so you know, but there's a need for our community. I appreciate you helping us get the word out. Your social media, everything you do with us has just been stellar and we're so appreciative of what you guys do here yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thanks so much and we will be sure to share this for everybody at Family Promise and all the people who follow us, and I think hopefully it opens some eyes in the central Indiana area, because Hamilton County does have this kind of it almost feels like a bubble around it that people see it as so our website.
Speaker 2:Yes wwwfpohcorg, which is family promise of Hamilton County.
Speaker 1:Yeah, makes it simple.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you, thank you. All right, thank you so much, nancy. Again, I really enjoyed you having in studio and chatting. It's always just fun to reconnect. I know you're extremely busy all the time with running family promise, so thank you for coming in and chatting with me. Just wanting to do a quick touch base to wrap up the episode.
Speaker 1:As you heard throughout the conversation with Nancy, we do a lot of work with them and promoting their mission and everything that they do at family Promise. So if you know the nonprofit in the area central Indiana and they need some help Just getting their name out there, getting the mission, spreading the word of what they do, please reach out to us at heart and digital and design. We'd be happy to help. It's something that's been A passion of mine since starting. The business is giving back, helping the nonprofits as much as we can.
Speaker 1:You know there's a trade-off, but I have worked with several nonprofits for several years now actually, and it's something that we Would love to keep doing. So if you're passionate about a nonprofit and you realize they don't have a great social media presence or they need a new website or they need just a website in general to get started, please have them reach out, visit us at the link in the description or just harden digital calm and then click on the Contact us button at the top of the page and let's start that conversation. So thanks everybody for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you next time on the digital wrap up. You.
