New Britain, Communities Walk For The Homeless

Kristina Vakhman, News Editor

Three-hundred ninety-two Connecticut families experienced homelessness in 2017a 13 percent decrease from 2016but Family Promise of Central Connecticut (FPCC) is looking to lower that number to zero.

The program held its third annual “Walk Away Homelessness Walk-a-Thon” Saturday at Walnut Hill Park, complete with a few laps around the scenery, performances by the New Britain High School marching band, warm-up yoga, face painting and even a magic show for kids. All fundraising proceeds went to FPCC, the New Britain-based nonprofit organization that helps homeless families with children regain adequate housing and self-sufficiency.

“It was awesome,” Kara Russell, president of FPCC and a Central Connecticut English professor, said while standing beside a falafel food truck at the event. “We had a good turnout and perfect weather and a lot of fun.”

The Walk-a-Thon pushed FPCC closer to its $45,000 goal, having raised $17,293 as of Sunday. The money pays for the program’s services, including the Family Promise Day Center in New Britain, which gives families a place to prepare for school and work, as well as presents the adults with resources to search for housing and employment.

The families are housed overnight at host congregations where volunteers provide meals, activities and other support. After a week’s stay with the first host congregation, the Family Promise van takes the family to another congregation to repeat the cycle.

Olivia Robinson, a pastor at Kensington Congregational Church and a volunteer at the Walk-a-Thon, said her church has been a host congregation since FPCC’s beginning. Though the church is currently unable to house families, Robinson is making sure it can in the near future.

“We’re in the middle of enlarging our parish hall, and one of the reasons is so we’ll have more space for homeless families,” Robinson explained.

“It’s really a safe program where [families] can have a semblance of a home atmosphere,” Chris Gates-Wnuk, a Kensington Congregational Church member and an event volunteer, chimed in. “It’s not their home, but we try to make it as home-like as possible. We just let them be families.”

Churchgoers from New Britain’s Peace Missionary Ministries also came to support the Walk-a-Thon. The congregation houses families and the church’s Head of Ushers Patricia Miller is proud that FPCC doesn’t discriminate.

“Whatever mix of your family, it’s a family,” Miller commented. She and Peace Missionary Ministries member Florence Hooker agreed that the program is effective in aiding the families toward self-sufficiency.

“The goal is not to keep them in that position where they have to be housed but to remove them from that into their own housing and transition them so they can be efficient on their own,” Hooker said.

According to FPCC’s website, nine weeks is a family’s average length of stay in the program and nearly 80 percent of guest families secure permanent or transitional housing before leaving Family Promise. More importantly, the families are never separated as they would be at a traditional shelter, instead entering the program as a whole family and leaving it together, too.

“It’s one thing to try and stop homelessness and another thing to keep families intact, which I think is a beautiful concept,” Matt Nave, a CCSU social work junior and a FPCC intern, stated. Manning the organization’s table at the Walk-a-Thon, Nave is trying to create his own FPCC service where families can go to educational facilities like science centers and have day outings; he’d recently called Lake Compounce to get the families Haunted Graveyard tickets.

For Richard Simonides, the Family Promise van driver, working at FPCC means more than just taking the homeless families back and forth from the Day Center to the congregations. He himself was homeless for a year and getting the driver job had given him the chance to get his own apartment at the same time that two FPCC are moving into their own places as well.

“I didn’t expect to end up [homeless]. People are homeless because of, basically, circumstances. Fortunately, there are organizations [like FPCC] that help out,” Simonides said. “I’m very passionate now about the homeless. Since becoming one, I realized it’s regular people like you and me who just happen to [experience certain] circumstances.”

The event finished with smiles and laughter. Pharrell’s song “Happy” played as the tents came down, and Russell said she was already looking forward to next year’s Walk-a-Thon to celebrate FPCC’s volunteers, raise more money and to raise awareness about family homelessness.

“A lot of people don’t realize it’s a problem. Homeless families tend to be an invisible segment of the homeless population,” Russell said.