Furniture is set up in the new Family Promise Community Shelter at 1210 Sentry Drive, Waukesha. The shelter, which can house five families at a time, will allow Family Promise of Waukesha County to assist twice as many families with temporary housing than it can now. (Submitted photo)
Family Promise of Waukesha County will open a facility to double its capacity to provide shelter and assistance to families experiencing homelessness in Waukesha County.
Scheduled to open at the end of April, the new Family Promise Community Shelter will be set up in the building owned by the Housing Action Coalition of Waukesha County, located at 1210 Sentry Drive.
The space has been used as the winter overflow shelter for people experiencing homelessness from November to the end of March since 2018.
“The Housing Action Coalition is excited to begin this partnership with Family Promise and our board is confident that it will make an immediate impact on families experiencing homelessness,” said Joe Pieper, Housing Action Coalition Board President. “Partnering with Family Promise keeps the building alive, vibrant and serving an important role in keeping people housed.”
The Family Promise Community Shelter will be able to provide temporary housing for five families at one time, with the purpose of helping them achieve permanent places to live.
“We are excited for this new program because of the many partnerships throughout Waukesha County, this program represents a grassroots, community response to the needs of families experiencing homelessness,” said Joe Nettesheim, Executive Director for Family Promise of Waukesha County.
Family Promise leases five single family apartments that are used to provide shelter to families and single women. Adding the new shelter program will allow the nonprofit organization to double its ability to respond to more families and stem the impact of homelessness.
“Working with the Housing Action Coalition and all of our partners, is the type of cooperation needed to have an effective, community-wide response to homelessness. Shelter is not the answer to homelessness. It’s an opportunity for families to stabilize. The solution is permanent, independent, affordable housing — which is lacking,” added Nettesheim.
