News

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Medina Foundation Approves $40,000 Grant for the Anacortes Family Center

(Jan 11, 2008)

The Medina Foundation's Board of Directors recently approved a $40,000 grant for the Anacortes Family Center. This grant puts us one more step closer towards the construction of our new facility on 27th Street.

The Anacortes Family Center's mission of providing emergency shelter for women, children and families matches the goals of the Medina Foundation in Seattle. Since 1947, the Medina Foundation has funded a variety of human service and education programs in the Greater Puget Sound counties of Washington State. They provide funds for emergency and critical human services to support those in need, including housing, food, counseling, case management, life training and other services, and they also provide funding for assistance programs for those suffering from the effects of domestic violence and prevention education to stop the cycle of violence.

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Boeing Company Provides $60,000 Grant for Family Center Construction

(Nov 16, 2007)

The Boeing Company fully funded the Anacortes Family Center's request for $60,000 to support our effort in building the new facility on 27th Street.

This grant is part of Boeing's Global Corporate Citizenship effort to be a facilitator of community change, not simply a source of community funding.

Boeing uses a competitive grant-making process that looks first at a project's or program's expected outcomes, and next for demonstrations of what they believe are the hallmarks of good community investments. Overall, grant requests throughout the enterprise are evaluated on:
- Alignment with one or more of Boeing's five focus areas and corresponding objectives
- Alignment with their company values and core competencies
- Clearly defined expected outcomes, relative to community needs, that are measurable, scalable, and have a sustainable impact on the community beyond the period of the company's involvement
- The extent to which the project or program demonstrates innovation, collaboration, leadership and diversity
- The organization's financial viability, programmatic strength, and legal compliance.

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Anacortes City Council Approves $75,000 Community Development Block Grant

(August 20, 2007)

In a unanimous vote, the Anacortes City Council approved plans to allocate $75,000 to the Anacortes Family Center's building project. This grant will come as part of the city's $115,000 Community Development Block Grant for the year. As part of the grant approval process, the council plans to meet with the Family Center's board of directors in order to ensure that the security of the neighborhood is provided for in the plans and operations of the shelter.

The new shelter—with its nine apartments, offices, and library—will provide more capability, more security and more staffing than we have now.

Thus far we're strictly a volunteer effort, but when the new facility is complete we will hire three professionally-trained and experienced staff members, including an executive director, a case manager and an administrator. Since we expect to have someone on site at all times we'll be more able to ensure the peace and quiet of the neighborhood as well as ensuring that our residents are consistently focused on the steps they need to take in finding a more permanent place to live.

Additionally, the new nine-unit facility will have many features that will provide additional security both for the residents and our neighbors. These include a single controlled entry into the building, a reprogrammable card-key entry system, and a state-of-the art closed circuit television and alarm systems. Additionally, the L-shaped design of the building, combined with a security fence enclosing the play area will ensure that we will have constant oversight over the residents of the building and continual monitoring of visitors and others who attempt to access the facility.

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Awards $150,000 Grant

(July 30, 2007)

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded a $150,000 grant for the construction of the new Anacortes Family Center. The Foundation's grant, coupled with the recent grants we received in June from the WA Housing Trust Fund, the City's Community Development Block Grants, and the Noon Kiwanis Club's, will really give us the leverage we need as we seek the final funding for construction of the new center.

With the Foundation's grant, we have amassed a little over $1.9 million towards our goal. If all goes well, we hope to start groundbreaking in the first quarter of 2008.

A few months ago, David Wertheimer—the senior program officer for the Pacific Northwest Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—met with the Mayor Dean Maxwell, other city officials, and the board of the Family Center.

We believe that what most impressed Mr. Wertheimer was our collective discussion about how the city, our non-profit agency, individual citizens and the city council were all working together to build a continuum of care for low income families in Anacortes.

We are engaged in building a synergistic effort, with the Anacortes Family Center at the entry level and the housing provided by the Anacortes Housing Authority as a transition. These parts of this continuum are coupled with the recent endeavors made by the Citizen's Advisory Panel on Low-Income Housing and the City Council to find more affordable housing as a longer-term solution.

About the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by CEO Patty Stonesifer and co-chair WIlliam H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

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Washinton Housing Trust Fund provides $1,190,000 Grant for the Anacortes Family Center

(June 19, 2007)

On the 19th of June the Washington Housing Trust Fund announced the recommended projects for this round of its biannual grant cycle. At the top of the list was the Anacortes Family Center, which was awarded a $1,190,000 grant. What makes this extra special for our project is that, other than another small project in Vancouver, we were the only project that received and out-and-out grant of money; all the rest were loans.

The grant from the state comes just after we received a $25,000 grant from the Anacortes Noon Kiwanis and a $75,000 grant from the City of Anacortes Community Development Block Grant account.

Including this grant from the Housing Trust Fund, we've collected over $1,735,000 towards our building project thus far, including another $12,000 we've already received from the city, as well as $112,000 we've garnered in grants from Skagit County, along with over $545,000 we've received in support from the citizens of Anacortes and from other granting agencies. With this loan we can see the light at the end of the tunnel for this building project. (This doesn't include over $30,000 we've received in grants to support our operational costs.)

We still have a number of hurdles to cross. The total cost for the construction of the new facility on our property on 27th Street is $2.3 million. This includes construction costs of $1.39 million as well as the land purchase, an inflation factor, an 11% contingency, the cost of hiring at prevailing wages, a performance bond and infrastructure improvements (sidewalks, parking, and paving the alley).

We have an additional $375,000 in grants that we're working on, and another agency has expressed an interest in purchasing the equipment for the nine kitchens for the Family Center.

That would leave us with a $190,000 shortfall before we can start construction, but we're optimistic that we can collect this in a reasonable period of time.

Since we began our operation in November 2005, almost 70 percent of our shelter clients have either found work, enrolled in job training or reconciled themselves with their families and were able to return home. We're doing this on a shoestring budget now, but even with the new facility, we calculate that we'll be able to house our clients at a cost of about $13.70 per day. This is a lot cheaper than the $45-$55 per day that churches and other agencies have been paying to put homeless mothers and kids and families into motels.

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Anacortes Noon Kiwanis Club provides $25,000 grant

(May 5, 2007)

Many thanks to the Anacortes Noon Kiwanis Club, whose members have donated $25,000 to the Anacortes Family Center's building program. With this donation—and the support given us through the Community Services Committee—the Noon Kiwanis Club continues to change Anacortes for the better, one child at a time.

Since we began operations a year ago, 30 residents—including 11 small children—have stayed in our two old shelter buildings.  We’ve had to turn away a significantly greater number than that. 

However, with the help of groups like the Anacortes Noon Kiwanis Club, we will be better enabled to assist more clients in a stable, helpful environment.

We encourage everyone to continue shopping at the Kiwanis Thrift Store at 5th and O.  Your donations and purchases make possible the outreach of the Kiwanis Noon Club.

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Housing Authority Grant for Anacortes Family Center

(January 15, 2007)

Tee McCallum, Director of the Housing Authority, presented two checks totaling $19,000 to the Anacortes Family Center today.  One, for $5,000, was from the Anacortes Housing Authority development fund. The other $14,000 came from the development fund for the New Wilson Hotel project. The development fund was required to donate a percentage of its grant to a nonprofit agency, and the Housing Authority's board of directors unanimously selected the Family Center as that agency.

The Anacortes Family Center’s work fits with the Anacortes Housing Authority’s mission.The Family Center serves as a transitional facility for homeless women, children and families with children who might later find more long-term living quarters with the Housing Authority. Although we’re a very small-scale operation at present, with the support we’ve received from the people of Anacortes and agencies like the Housing Authority, we’ll be able to construct the nine-unit facility we envision.

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Norcliffe Foundation makes a Holiday Grant

(December 26, 2006)

The Anacortes Family Center received a great end-of-year $25,000 grant from the Norcliffe Foundation.  THE Norcliffe Foundation is a private nonprofit family foundation established in 1952 by Paul Pigott for the purpose of improving the quality of life of all people by the application of financial and human resources.

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Thank You for Your Christmas Presents

(December 24, 2006)

Many thanks to those who donated clothing, kitchen utensils, furniture, beds, bedding, Christmas trees and presents! All this has made the shelters look much more like real homes as well as helped a mom with six kids establish their new home.  You’ve made the Christmas holidays very special for many children in Anacortes!

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A $60,000 Grant

(December 21, 2006)

As reported by Elaine Walker in last week’s Anacortes American, a $60,000 county grant from the Washington Homeless Housing and Assistance Act funds will be applied toward the development and construction of the Anacortes Family Center.

Paul Chaplik, Executive Director of United Way of Skagit County, chaired the committee that made this year’s recommendations. The grant was endorsed by the board of directors of the Skagit County Community Action Agency and was forwarded to the County Commissioners on Nov. 20th for final approval.

We will pool this grant with other grants as we continue to amass the funds needed to construct the new facility at the site of our current emergency and transitional shelters

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Water Water Everywhere

(December 13, 2000)

After an 18-day wait, the frozen and busted water pipe at the Transitional Shelter was repaired last Friday. In the interim we ran a hose from the Emergency Shelter next door through the dryer outlet and into the bathroom of the Transitional Shelter. 

This continues to point out the need for more modern—and expanded—facilities. 

Anacortes will be able to help many more homeless moms and families with children when we build our nine-unit Family Center. 

If you would like to make an investment in changing the lives of many more homeless Anacortes families, please consider a tax-deductible contribution to the Anacortes Community Shelter Project, P.O. Box 681, Anacortes, WA, 98221.

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