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A local priest's dream has been fulfilled: Family Promise, a national interfaith organization that helps homeless families to find housing and jobs, has opened a day center in the Albany Diocese and gotten support from nine area Catholic parishes.

"This is what I hoped for," said Rev. Francis O'Connor, chaplain for Our Lady of the Americas Shrine Church in Albany (a mission of Blessed Sacrament parish).

Father O'Connor read about Family Promise in America magazine in 2013 and immediately began urging Catholics and others in the Diocese to band together to help families in this area who are facing homelessness.

"Doesn't this sound like one way to carry out Jesus' mission of bringing Good News to the poor? Can we as a church, synagogue or mosque impact or even turn around this desperate situation? I think we can. I think our parishes can," he wrote in The Evangelist.

Church aid
Since then, four parishes have agreed to become "host congregations" for homeless families, housing them for a week four or five times a year: Mater Christi parish in Albany, St. John the Evangelist and St. Joseph's in Rensselaer, St. Madeleine Sophie and St. Gabriel's in Guilderland and Rotterdam (working in partnership) and St. Kateri Tekakwitha in Schenectady.

Another five are serving as "support congregations," offering financial aid or volunteers for the effort: St. Vincent de Paul and Our Lady of the Americas in Albany, St. Mary's in Clinton Heights, Sacred Heart in Castleton and Holy Spirit in East Greenbush.

Reformed, United Church of Christ, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Orthodox and Jewish congregations have also signed up with Family Promise. (Read a previous story at www.evangelist.org.)

The new Family Promise day center at 738 New Scotland Ave. in Albany opened April 12, next door to Bethany Reformed Church. The center will offer shower and laundry facilities and an address at which guests can receive mail, plus transportation to the host site where they'll be housed for the week.

"We take families we know we can help," explained Mary Giordano, a parishioner of Our Lady of the Americas who is serving as director for Family Promise locally.

Why homeless
She said some families end up homeless because of a job loss or expenses from a health crisis, or they've been living with relatives and that situation becomes too stressful: "What they need is a home. They need a permanent place. They need to be independent."

Mrs. Giordano cited the case of a family who loses an apartment because their hot water is turned off: "With rapid help, we can quickly get to the heart of what caused this problem," so the family doesn't end up trapped in a cycle of financial instability and homelessness.

Family Promise's goal is that "families will have their own apartment and independence within three or four months," she said.

The local offshoot can serve 14 people at a time -- the equivalent of three or four families. Mrs. Giordano expected to be getting two referrals from the Homeless and Travelers Aid Society (HATAS) within days of opening.

She said she's excited to offer volunteers "an opportunity for living out their faith" by helping a family in need, whether that means setting up beds at a parish center, being a listening ear, helping children with homework or bringing a meal for a family being housed at a parish.

About 200 people have volunteered; the director is looking for two more host sites so that congregations only have to host families four times a year.

"It's not a finished product," noted Father O'Connor, who cut the ribbon on the center's opening day. He has high hopes for Family Promise's future in the Diocese; he said the organization has a good director who hails from his own parish, "a very fine board and the grace of God."[[In-content Ad]]

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