Back in a House: Day center will give the homeless a base to help them with transition

Debbi Butner was a senior in high school when her family of eight moved to a campground in New York state. They lived in a tent for several months while sorting out finances and saving enough to get back in a house.

"We were homeless. At the time, I didn't really realize it. I never considered myself ‘homeless,' but we fit the definition. We weren't on a (school) bus route. My parents took us to catch our bus. We couldn't bring friends home. We didn't talk about our house," Butner said.

Debbi Butner is leaving her job as a computer programmer for the Greensboro office of Global Software, a Raleigh company that sells financial-software packages, to become the first executive director of Family Promise of Forsyth County, a new nonprofit organization aimed at helping the county's homeless population.

Family Promise, a national organization, has more than 140 affiliates in the United States. Butner, who said she "felt stirrings" that God was asking her to determine her passion and purpose, contacted the organization to determine the feasibility of opening a branch in Forsyth County.

The organization helps families transition back into self-sufficiency. Using a network of different churches, Family Promise provides cots and bedding bundles. Nine Kernersville area churches have committed to providing space on rotating weeks. Six more churches are in discussion for joining.

Fountain of Life Lutheran Church recently finished an addition. Its old office space, a renovated house, will serve as the day center where families can shower, do laundry, and gather for homework and other activities before being taken to the host church, where they will eat dinner, sleep and have breakfast.

The day center will also provide a permanent address, vital for job and housing applications. Main Street United Methodist Church has donated a 15-passenger van to be used for transportation between the churches and the day center.

Stephen Martin, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Kernersville, said that his congregation immediately signed up to participate.

"It fits our scope and vision of our ministry," Martin said. "We say we have a heart for our community. This is a social ministry that meets one of the needs of the community."

Churches will begin welcoming families in June. Martin said that his church has a town meeting scheduled for Sunday to discuss logistics. Churches must have two people present each night when the homeless families stay in their facilities, said Butner, who has recruited churches in the Kernersville and Walkertown areas so far.

Laura McDuffee, the director of reports and statistics for Carolina Homeless Information Network in Raleigh, reported that in 2008, agencies in Forsyth County served 3,360 homeless individuals. That included 637 families and 757 children younger than 18 years.

Theo Helm, a spokesman for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, said that the school system had 507 homeless children in 2008.

Butner said she believes that the numbers of homeless will continue to rise with the area's economic woes.

Family Promise will begin with an annual budget of $108,000, which includes a full-time executive director and a part-time social worker, as well as hundreds of volunteers. A grant of $23,000 from the Winston-Salem Foundation will pay for the social worker. So far, most of the startup costs have been offset by in-kind donations from community volunteers.

The organization's first fundraiser will be April 24 on the football field at Kernersville Elementary School. Clubs and organizations across Forsyth County are invited to spend the night in cardboard boxes for the first Cardboard Box City. Participants are asked to get sponsors who will pledge money to help them raise awareness of the increasing problem of homelessness.

Butner said she hopes that families will volunteer to help at churches and at the day center, and that they will build relationships.

"This is a great opportunity for our young people to get a better picture of what homelessness is," she said. "You pass people every day and don't realize that they could fit the definition of homelessness."

For more information, visit the Family Promise of Forsyth County Web site at www.familypromiseforsyth.org.

■ Monica Young can be reached at cyoung9@triad.rr.com.