Vine Maple Place has helped single parents transition from homelessness to stability for more than a decade but staff of the Maple Valley-based nonprofit wants to do more.

Kathi Ridge, manager of development for VMP, explained they wanted to do more as a response to the growing need in the community.

“What we really wanted to come up with was a way to make a bigger impact on family homelessness in the community,” Ridge said. It takes a long time to bring a family out of homelessness, it takes a lot of money and it takes a lot of effort.”

This came as a result of discussions in meetings to strategize about the organization’s future. There was revenue in reserve and the idea was to come up with the best way to use the money in the long term.

About two years ago, Ridge said, a few of the staff met with the board of directors, then separately with pastors in the community — since its inception Vine Maple Place was supported by an alliance of area churches — and then with the nonprofits employees. Each group independent of one another came up with the same idea: catch a family in a safety net before they become homeless.

“Then we’re not limited by brick and mortar (housing availability),” Ridge said. “That was exciting. We decided to move in that direction.”

In January 2012 the staff began developing from the ground up what would be a program now called Stable Families. It was developed based on what they saw as the needs in the community coupled with the skill set VMP developed during the past 13 years. By the end of the summer they were ready to launch a one-year pilot program.

It was supposed to be a small pilot with maybe 10 families. It grew to 27 families. The pilot wraps up this month. During the pilot the staff learned a great deal about what fit, about what assumptions were right and what needed adjusting.

“First of all, we learned that it works,” Ridge said. “We learned that families that come through Stable Families are families that we are certain were on the path to becoming homeless.”

Ridge explained that there is a path to homelessness. It starts with financial instability. Any number of things can lead to this such as divorce, domestic violence, job loss, mental health issues or even transportation problems. It starts them down a bumpy, downhill road and then one financial crisis can lead to a dilemma which frequently results in an eviction notice.

“They’re in crisis, they can’t pay the rent,” Ridge said. “It’s this situation they just can’t get out of and what happens is they fall into this homelessness. We’ll catch them right here. What we’re trying to do is to get them way up to stability — that’s the goal. What we’re doing is try to get them to a point where they make a livable wage.”

Families who come into the program are offered much of the same support those who go through the transitional program receive, what VMP staff call wrap-around services, which goes well beyond providing some money to help pay bills or finding or keeping a place to live. More than a dozen volunteers help coach clients in managing their finances and so on.

And what VMP does is facilitate additional support through the Community Caring Network, which is a group of churches, the school districts, the cities of Maple Valley, businesses, and other community organizations such as the Maple Valley Food Bank. There is financial support, help with paying bills, coaching, connection with better jobs, to name a few things members of the network do to help resolve the financial crisis.

“As they go through this and continue to engage with us … as long as they’re working those steps, then we continue to support them,” Ridge said. “This program takes on average—to get from this point of where they’re on the verge of homelessness to stability—about six months and it costs on average about $9,600. You can see the great benefit, it’s way less time, they don’t have to go through the trauma of losing everything. And what we’ve found through this pilot is it really works.”

Compare that to the families in transitional housing, Ridge said. It costs about $48,000 to help them and about a year on average to move them to stability. Add to that the fact VMP has 12 housing units available with far more demand than space, it makes sense to help families before they become homeless so they can continue to live in the same place and learn how to get off the edge of financial instability.

Colleen Starr, executive director of VMP, said it is important for the community recognize that there are families in the area the Stable Families program serves — Maple Valley, Hobart, Black Diamond, Ravensdale, Covington, about a nine mile radius — that need help despite the perception of a largely middle class population.

“These are our neighbors, these are people who their kids go to the Tahoma School District, they work in our community, they shop in our community,” Starr said. “Our goal is to end family homelessness in our community, it’s a lofty goal, but that’s what we’re working toward. We have people in our community who are very low income who are close to homelessness. People think, ‘Oh we live in Maple Valley.’ But there are a lot of people who do not fit into that mold and there are families who fit into our community who are needy.”

Starr said everyone at VMP is excited about the potential impact of Stable Families. She said they would like to help other communities replicate it.

“We think if we as a society could do this in other communities, we could make a much greater impact on homelessness than just building more low-cost housing,” Starr said. “It’s a way for us as a community to come alongside folks.”

Ridge believes that Stable Families can be done elsewhere.

“It’s easily replicable because you don’t have to worry about the brick and mortar, the expense (involved),” Ridge said.

Starr added that VMP will continue to provide transitional housing and the wrap-around services which accompany that element of the nonprofit’s work.

Stable Families then is another layer on top of that, financially and in terms of time.

Michelle Frets, director of the program, said Stable Families provides that support network those in need in the community do not have. She pointed out that it goes beyond financial assistance, it’s not just some cash and wishing clients luck.

Frets said there will be a greater need as Stable Families expands for support from the community both in terms of cash as well as volunteer hours, networking, and other needs.

“When I think about where we were a year ago, the learning curve is outrageous,” Frets said. “We’re not just transitional housing. We’re self-sufficiency. Every day we have these little miracles about new perspective and it’s just awesome.”