Stegner believes in marketing all the skills, attributes, and accolades you can when looking for affordable housing partners.

“Communities really need to think about what they can provide in terms of incentives to encourage the development of more properties,” she says.

“Look at your zoning laws, look at your tax credits, which will always be limited. Think about other ways of doing things differently to be cost-effective and allow for low area median income households to rent more units.”

This has become a necessity in regions like El Paso County, where Stegner’s Partners in Housing is based. She notes about 45 percent of country households are cost-burdened, meaning they’re paying more than 30 percent of AMI on housing or, in severe cases, more than 50 percent.

“El Paso is really suffering because wages are lower than Denver metro, but housing costs are about the same,” she says.

“It takes time to build new housing, and it’s very costly to build new. Folks who own naturally occurring affordable housing properties are also selling to organizations from other states that convert the properties to market-rate properties.

Article by Nelli Day

To read the full story, visit Here.

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Sarah’s Story 

At Partners in Housing, we strive to see every family in our program successfully move out of crisis and to a place of stability. We guide families on their self-sufficiency journey by providing a year of transitional housing, personalized case management, budget and credit counseling, career readiness workshops, life skills classes, and access to our free Donation Centers. We are proud to announce our latest program offering – housing navigation.

When budgets are tight, navigating the housing market can be difficult for anyone. Factor in that 50% of Partners in Housing families have an eviction on their record and things quickly become more complicated.

We hired Sarah Seales as our full-time Housing Navigator in January to assist families on their search for housing beyond our program. Sarah is giving families the greatest chance for success by having one-on-one meetings and walking through a variety of documents such as the documentation required to apply for housing, the key factors landlords are looking at when reviewing applications like income, employment history, rental history, credit score, and criminal background, and determining what properties make the most sense to apply to based on budget, eligibility, needs, and preferences.

In addition to meeting with the families, Sarah is an advocate, building relationships with landlords and property managers and showing that the families we recommend can be trusted to pay their rent on-time and take good care of their property. Landlords and property managers don’t have to look any further than Sarah for proof of program success. Sarah and her two daughters were in the Partners in Housing program in 2012. Sarah worked incredibly hard and successfully moved onto stable housing upon graduating from the program. Nine years later, Sarah is back, this time as a Partners in Housing employee, advocating for families and giving them the best chance at success.

While every family’s story is different, Sarah knows what it’s like to be on the other side of the table. She understands how overwhelming and daunting it can feel when starting out and so she wrote a letter to program families in hopes of showing there’s light at the end of the tunnel if they show up, work hard, and take one step at a time.

“Here you are. You might not have ever imagined you would be in this place. I know I didn’t see it coming in 2011 when I found myself and my daughters with no place to live and too small of an income to make ends meet. I did everything I could to keep myself afloat but I just couldn’t do it…not on my own. There’s a team now to help you figure it all out but I know from experience that it isn’t all easy from here…”

Sarah, like many other families in the program, arrived with very little. A divorce left Sarah, a stay-at-home mom, without a home, without a job, and without the time to find a job that paid well enough to support her and her two kids. She turned to the Partners in Housing program in an effort to give her daughters a place to call home while she figured out her next steps. When we talked with Sarah, she told a story about how her daughters didn’t know they were technically homeless when they in our housing. She said her daughters were so excited about the free Donation Center and the house they were in. It wasn’t until years later when a Partners in Housing representative coincidentally visited one of her daughter’s schools and talked about our agency that her daughter connected the dots.

Sarah worked incredibly hard while in the program, built up her resources, and was able to find an apartment and a job with the right income. Before working at Partners in Housing, Sarah owned and operated a thriving cleaning business for several years and was able to employ others in need of an income. In 2020, Sarah closed her cleaning business in order to work full-time as the Housing Navigator for Partners in Housing.

Thank you, Sarah, for your inspiring work with the families in our program. We and the families in our program are lucky to have you.

The post Newest Program Offering: Housing Navigation appeared first on Partners in Housing.

As we continue to see changing needs for the Partner families in our Self-Sufficiency Program, we are very excited to announce that, due to wonderful community support, we have been able to provide all the families in our program with updated computers and internet service. The funding received will cover the costs of internet so families can work from home, attend school remotely when needed, and connect with us and other service providers. Helping our families overcome the “digital divide” has been a goal we are so happy to have reached!

To this day, we accept used computers which are then refurbished through PCs for People. These computers are then given to families in our transitional housing program. You can drop off your used laptops at our main office, 455 Gold Pass Heights, Colorado Springs, CO, 80906 M-F, 8:30am-4:30pm. 

Questions? Please reach out to Tarin Potter at tpotter@partnersinhousing.org or (719) 559-3286.

From a partner who received a computer:

“We are so thankful for the computer that was given to our family, it has everything we needed! I am able to work from home doing online booking for a local report. My oldest son suffers from some significant mental health issues and can now use or old computer, which was not working for my job, to stay busy and happy. My junior high school age daughter is doing school online so the school provided computer is dedicated to her schoolwork. I never thought we would all be home during the days and have the ability to do all of these things. Thank you to Partners in Housing for our home during these crazy times and for the tools we need to make everything work!”

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Our Partner families pay rent based on 30% of their monthly income, which we then use for property upkeep. Because of special funding we received from the Pikes Peak Community Foundation/ Pikes Peak United Way COVID Relief Fund and the State COVID Relief Fund we are able to provide rent waivers to families who have lost income. Partners in Housing also uses these funds, along with donations, to provide food, hygiene products, baby products and gift cards for other items.

Through this time of many changes we have learned that some things will return to pre-COVID normal and some things will be a New normal. In this new way of working and learning, many of the Partner families lack the technology services, training, and equipment necessary to achieve their goals. Partners in Housing is working diligently with plans to assist in overcoming these obstacles so work from home employment opportunities, adult education, and children’s schooling can be accomplished.

Please contact us if you wish to learn how you can help!

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