Mayor Luke Bronin and Journey Home Executive Director Matthew Morgan announced that the Melville Charitable Trust has awarded $86,000 to Journey Home for its operations through June of 2018. In recent years, the City of Hartford has allocated a similar amount to Journey Home through its annual budget.
“Journey Home changes lives every day, and I am deeply gratified that their work will continue thanks to the Melville Charitable Trust,” said Mayor Bronin. “As the City has had to step back from funding programs we value, local organizations have repeatedly stepped up. In recent weeks, we’ve announced private funding for the ‘Summer in the City’ event series and the Bushnell Park Carousel. This is another demonstration of the tremendous commitment and generosity we are fortunate to have in Hartford and in Connecticut.”
“Journey Home is delighted and grateful to receive this support from the Melville Charitable Trust. This grant makes it possible for us to continue our focus on ending homelessness in Greater Hartford in 2017 and 2018. Systems will be improved, positive changes will be made, and lives will be transformed because of this award. We are pleased that this grant will fill a gap for this year, but we do continue to have concerns about sustaining this funding going forward. We appreciate and understand the tight fiscal constraints that are facing the City of Hartford and we have greatly appreciated our partnership with the City over the last several years. We are grateful for the efforts that the City of Hartford and Mayor Bronin have made to ensure that we are able to secure funding for another year to keep our vital services intact,” said Matthew Morgan.
Morgan continued, adding that, “Housing people who have experienced chronic homelessness is not only the right thing to do, but it is also a wise investment in our future. Study after study has proven that money spent on supportive housing – housing where subsidies to pay for rent are combined with flexible, voluntary support services – decreases the costs that we would otherwise spend to support them in homeless shelters, hospitals, emergency rooms, jails and prisons.”
Journey Home’s focus for the past 11 years has been finding creative solutions to ending chronic homelessness. People who have experienced chronic homelessness have been homeless for long periods of time and are often the most ill and most likely to struggle through the processes to access housing. Many have languished in the system for years and most are high utilizers of incredibly expensive public services. Working with outstanding partners agencies, the Hartford region has witnessed an almost 50% decrease in chronic homelessness over the past two years.
About Journey Home
Journey Home’s mission is to ensure a home for all. They believe the most powerful way to do that is collectively – by working together with service providers, elected officials, businesses and local communities to end homelessness in Greater Hartford. They build partnerships and advance innovative solutions to achieve enduring, systemic change. For more information about Journey Home, please visit their website at www.journeyhomect.org.
About The Melville Charitable Trust
The Melville Charitable Trust is the largest foundation in the U.S. exclusively devoted to ending homelessness. The Trust invests in proven, lasting, and cost-effective solutions that enable people with the least resources and biggest barriers to success to reclaim their lives. And where solutions have not yet been identified they support exploration and innovation to find the most promising approaches. The Trust’s grant making dollars are roughly split between efforts to end homelessness in their home state of Connecticut and in creating a better policy environment at the national level. Since their founding in 1990, they have invested over $140 million in to end homelessness for good. Learn more at melvilletrust.org.
