Harford Family House Spotlight
Harford Family House (HFH's) main goal is to support families with children and individuals experiencing homelessness. HFH works alongside those they serve to address the root causes of homelessness and help them build a path towards lasting independence.
Founded in 1989, HFH provides housing, support, and resources to families in Harford County. Since its founding, HFH has helped more than 2000 people across more than 700 families. Since 2006, Harford Family House Emergency Shelter has provided housing and hope to individuals with services including a safe place to sleep, a locker, and access to showers and laundry facilities, along with 3meals a day and professional case management services.
Through housing, support, and community education, Harford Family House spreads awareness of homelessness and provides security with hope to ultimately end homelessness in Harford County.
Volunteer Opporutinities
Giving a Helping Hand
Looking to make an impact?
Volunteer at Harford Family House!
HFH offers a variety of hands-on volunteer opportunities to empower students of all ages! Volunteer opportunities include:
- Help clean the programming space
- Organize the food pantry
- Pick up donations
- Label food supplies with expiration dates
- Organize a supply drive for items on HFH Amazon Wishlist or Supply List
- Write “Feel Good Friday” cards of encouragement to the residents
- Fill welcome baskets or snack bags for residents
- Help sort donations and organize the supply area
Kailey Jourdan, assistant director of volunteer and community engagement, remembers seeing "10-year-olds with paint brushes, painting walls for a new apartment for a family to move into, or cleaning a kitchen, things like that."
Kailey emphasizes how rewarding it is to volunteer but also highlights how it allows students to develop skills they can carry with them beyond their time at HFH.
November is especially important for volunteers since it is Homelessness Awareness Month. During this month, HFH hosts donation drives and relies on volunteers to help:
- Log all of the donations
- Write expiration dates on food supplies
- Sort and put all the donation items away
- Organize supplies in their food pantries
Can't volunteer in November? Don't worry! There are many opportunities throughout the year.
As Kailey explains, "we always have people moving in and out or new people coming in who need help." Having volunteers come and help makes a big difference. Whether it is just painting a wall, cleaning, or making a bed, these small acts of service can make a meaningful difference for families moving into HFH.
As Harford Family House expands its shelters in Belcamp and Aberdeen, volunteers will be needed to help them get those spaces ready to go for families to move into.
Changing Perspectives
Homelessness doesn't always look like homelessness.
Kailey explains that "homelessness in a lot of people's minds is kind of what it tends to look like in city environments . . . people sleeping on the sidewalks or people with signs on the side of the street". However, homelessness can take many forms and can result from different circumstances: a divorce, an unexpected death, domestic violence, or losing their home to a fire. These circumstances can affect anyone, often in ways they never anticipated.
Someone experiencing homelessness may still have a vehicle, but be sleeping in that car, staying in a hotel, or temporarily staying with friends or families. Others may stay in secluded areas, such as wooded areas or places with little monitoring.
For Harford Family House, raising awareness of homelessness is vital; it means shifting popular perspectives from blame to empathy and focusing on how homelessness is driven by a multitude of issues rather than personal failure. HFH hopes to inspire community members to support local resources, treat unhoused locals with respect, and approach their experiences with empathy.
Give a Helping Hand
For Harford Family House, ending homelessness means more than providing just shelter, it means empowering families and individuals by giving them a "hand up".
HFH focuses on helping residents build a firm foundation for lasting independence while encouraging them to take an active role in rebuilding their lives. Kailey highlights HFH's "case management team," describing them as "so amazing" and willing to "go 1,000 extra miles for any of our residents". She also emphasizes the importance of residents putting in the work themselves because, once they move out on their own, they will not always have HFH there to lean on.
HFH also offers an aftercare program, which offers continued support by providing case management, workshops, and house and self-care supplies. The program is designed to. help prevent clients from returning to homelessness. HFH emphasizes that residents must also be prepared to face the real-world challenges that may continue after leaving the program.
In return, as Kailey explains, "we work really hard to empower them and motivate them to do just as much work as we're doing for them in their own lives. She describes this approach as "building the road to independence" explaining that it is about more than simply finding someone a place to live but finding them all of the resources they need to be successful on their own.
Statistics
Transferred 87% of its residents into stable housing
Served over 210 individuals in their emergency shelter
Served 17,000 meals in their emergency shelter
A Memorable Story
Keeping Families Together
"This is definitely one of my favorites" Kailey says as she shares a memorable story from her time at Harford Family House.
Kailey begins by emphasizing that HFH's program is centered around reuniting families, where they offer apartments where families can move in together as one unit.
She remembers a father who had completed a recovery program but had unfortunately lost custody of his children during that time. He was working to regain custody of his daughters, so he had reached out to HFH for support. After completing his recovery program, he did not have a permanent address, which prevented him from regaining custody. Harford Family House provided a solution; in November, he had moved into their facility.
As the first week of December rolled around, HFH hosted its Santa Shop for children, where the family was reunited at last. Before their reunion, the two sisters had been in separate foster care homes. Kailey remembers that the youngest was not speaking at all; they thought that she was nonverbal autistic. But after the family reunited, she began speaking and quickly came out of her shell. Kailey remembers the youngest running up to her office and asking, "Can I open the door for you, Ms. Kailey?" Kailey remembers them being "so sweet, such great girls" and says it was "honestly a pleasure to be able to offer them that stability they really needed"
HFH & Harford Helps FAQ
Harford Helps is a searchable directory of charitable organizations and community service agencies in Harford County Maryland.
Harford Helps makes it easy to find places to donate items no longer needed, discover volunteer opportunities with meaningful causes, and locate programs and services that provide assistance to people in need.
Click the button that says Harford Family House to go to their Harford Helps profile page.
Visit HarfordHelps.com, open the directory, use the search tool to select causes of interest, then click submit to explore local organizations supporting the causes you care about!
Harford Helps
About Harford Helps
Harford Helps is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to connecting organizations through volunteerism and donations. By partnering with local nonprofits, schools, and community groups, Harford Helps makes it easy for individuals to give back in ways that align with their passions and availability. This platform serves as a centralized hub for discovering not only volunteer opportunities but also donation options and finding help.
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