Gresham, Oregon, shelter My Father’s House focuses on life skills and family responsibility

As a youth pastor in Gresham, Cathe Wiese grew increasingly troubled by the children whose families were sleeping in tents, motels or cars. Their parents’ challenges often went beyond rent, including domestic violence, addiction, criminal histories and unemployment. Wiese envisioned a shelter where parents could regain housing and also learn life skills that would help them stay housed.

“We didn’t just want a Band-aid,” Wiese said. “We wanted to see lives changed.”

Since the faith-based, non-profit My Father’s House opened in Gresham in January 2001, more than 1,400 families have moved from the homeless shelter to a home, according to the source. In January, Wiese told Chair Deborah Kafoury and Commissioner Lori Stegmann, who toured the shelter, “Seeing people change is amazing.” Stegmann, the District 4 Commissioner for Gresham and East County, had also invited Marc Jolin, director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services, which oversees the shelter system for Multnomah County and the City of Portland.

My Father’s House is one of 20 year-round or seasonal shelters in the metro area, including some that operate with a mix of private and public funding. Chair Kafoury said the faith-based community is an essential partner in helping families, from emergency severe weather shelters open to anyone to longer-term shelters with stricter requirements. “We are in a housing crisis, and it will take all of us: government, business, and faith-based organizations like this one, to make a difference,” she said. “I wish we didn’t need shelters for our families at all. But while we’re in this crisis, local government needs all the community support we can get.”

The program began in a Gresham duplex that Wiese and her pastor, Ted Roberts at East Hill Church, first opened. It now occupies a spacious, modern complex on 3.2 acres at 175th and West Powell Boulevard in Gresham. The program centers on a three-story hub where 28 families stay four to six months in 290-square-foot studio apartments. Families who complete the mandatory milestones can apply to a connected transitional housing program, Stepping Stones, where they may stay up to a year.

Case managers work with families to meet job and employment requirements and help them take classes in budgeting, parenting, rental readiness and life skills. Families work to get jobs, repay debt, earn high school diplomas, regain custody of their children if their families are involved with state child welfare, and repair their credit histories. Because the operation is largely church-run, the source notes, families also do a fair amount of praying. Wiese says 75 to 85 percent of enrolled families have completed the program and moved into their own housing.

“I’m so impressed with their results,” Commissioner Stegmann said. “To rise out of poverty, you need three things: a home, a job and a friend. My Father’s House represents all of those things and so much more. Dignity, accountability and unconditional love are the foundation of their success.”

The non-profit built the $3.9 million hub with cash in 2008, the result of three years of fundraising, and followed with $1.2 million in townhouses. Wiese and her team directed nearly every detail, down to the size of the handle pulls on the kitchen cabinets. “Kids could climb on the larger ones,” Wiese said, running her hand over the small protrusions. “But we found these at Ikea, and they’re just right.” The wide, well-lit hallways with high ceilings are the first thing visitors notice. “I didn’t want it to feel like a shelter,” Wiese said. “I wanted people to feel like it’s home,” a choice that reflects hospitality toward strangers (Matthew 25:35).

Visitors must be buzzed into the center by a receptionist, but they are not allowed in the living quarters on the first and second floors.

Source: Read the original report