by Tracy Chamberlin

Imagine the road home paved in paperwork. Thirteen hundred pages of government rules and regulations block the front door. It turns out there is only one local agency with a pair of scissors big enough to cut through all that red tape.

 

Housing Solutions for the Southwest has been helping families and individuals in La Plata, Archuleta, Dolores, Montezuma and San Juan counties navigate the bureaucracy and find their way home for 30 years. They will honor that legacy with a celebration Friday afternoon at Ska Brewing in Bodo Park, and everyone is invited to the party.

 

All members of the community are welcome to come speak with staff members, listen to success stories from clients, or simply offer a toast to the agency’s next 30 years.

 

The local nonprofit began as a small community action agency, called Southwest Community Resources, based in downtown Durango in 1981.

Just the Facts What: Housing Solutions’ 30th Anniversary Celebration When: Fri., Sept. 23, 3 - 7 p.m. Where: SKA Brewery, 225 Girard Details: Food, door prizes and live music by Ten Cent Raise; for more information call (970) 259-1086, ext. 10

Their purpose then was helping people find jobs, giving seniors nutritional advice, and assisting homeowners with energy upgrades to their homes.

 

Some of the smaller outreach programs, like nutrition classes, were later dropped and the agency chose to focus its limited resources on one thing – the home.

 

Weatherization services became the cornerstone that programs were built upon.

 

Insulation, caulking, furnace servicing and window repairs are just some of the projects the agency’s current program tackles. The result is more than 3,000 families that have been helped in the past 30 years.

 

Currently, the most prominent program has shifted from weatherization to foreclosure assistance.

 

Housing Counselor Clark Haggard manages the Foreclosure Assistance Program and says this area is losing families due to the economic situation here and across the country.

 

Last month, Haggard worked with 125 families, of which about 70 percent will stay in their homes thanks to Housing Solutions intervention. “It’s satisfying that homeowners stay here, and stay in their homes,” he says.

 

Another service the agency provides is the Housing Choice Voucher Program, managed by Sheri Rex. She is the one who handles the almost 1,300 pages of government rules and regulations handed down by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. Rex has a limited number of vouchers she can provide to the community each year, and her waiting list continues to grow.

 

In many ways, she is a translator for families, individuals, seniors and others who need to utilize the federal rental assistance program but don’t know how to conquer the paperwork involved in applying. Sometimes simply knowing how to organize and fill out applications is what makes the difference for clients.

 

Programs Director Tami Miller began working for the agency in January of 1991 and has witnessed the expansion of its programs and services.
“We are unique in that we offer so many services under one roof,” Miller says. “It’s cost effective and easy for our clients.”

 

Executive Director Kim Welty came to the agency after working on the construction side and starting out as a construction manager. She helped the agency move to the next level with projects like Southwest Horizon Ranch, a 61-unit housing development owned and operated by the agency.
However, building a roof is not the only tool to building a home. Clients can learn ways to navigate budgets and rental agreements, learn parenting techniques, or understand how to manage their money.

 

“All of our programs involve some component of housing counseling,” Welty says.

 

The main goal of the agency is to help their clients not just find homes but sustain them. They learn to be self-sufficient and leave uncertain or at-risk situations behind to become community assets.”

 

The agency may not have the right program for all of its clients, but for these people, it can offer outside contacts and resources.
“You just want to be there for people when they have a situation they’ve never faced before, and they don’t have a clue as to how to start,” Housing

Solutions’ Savannah Failing says.

 

Failing manages the Emergency Homeless Prevention Program, a one-time assistance program aimed at keeping families on the edge of homelessness in their homes. It is considered a short-term assistance program, but Failing can offer additional resources even within her own organization.

 

Sometimes her clients move into other programs the agency offers because for many people, solving short-term problems leaves them unable to find long-term solutions.

 

Lora Sholes, director of the Transitional Housing Program, worked for the Volunteers of America at the community shelter where the focus was on “short-term crisis prevention.”

 

She says she appreciates that organization and what they accomplished, but at Housing Solutions she is able to work with her clients over a longer period of time, and she can see the results.

 

Transitional Housing is a two-year program for homeless families. The focus is to help them find stability, save money and transition into independent housing.

 

Sholes has likely helped 100 families find a pathway to permanent housing situations in the nine years she has worked for Housing Solutions.

 

One of her clients, Ashlie Hall, entered the program a few months ago. Hall says Sholes “gave me my life back.”
And she is already paying it forward. She plans to plant two gardens next season to feed families staying at a local shelter, giving fresh foods to others after she was given a fresh start herself.

 

According to Hall, the one variable to success is the desire to succeed.

 

“You have to wade through the swamps to find the meadows,” Hall says. She will be at the 30-year anniversary event to share her story.

 

In 2010, the agency assisted more than 1,200 families across the Four Corners region. However, many of the phone calls answered and resources passed on over the past 30 years do not end up on the annual report. It’s hard to imagine what this community would look like without the services the agency provides.

 

For most of the staff, though, it’s not about the numbers.
“When you see someone who gets a home,” Welty says. “It’s so moving to see the emotion. That’s what keeps you going.”

Housing Solutions of the Southwest is always in need of time, money and sweat. For more information or to donate, call 259-1086 or email kwelty@swhousingsolutions.com.