News

Thank You to Our Volunteers from Stryker

12.06.13

On Thursday, November 7, 2013, Open Doors Kalamazoo was honored to host a large group of volunteers from Stryker. The group of 23 employees from Stryker participated in the United Way Day of Caring program by volunteering for Open Doors Kalamazoo. The group painted hallways and cleaned apartments at Cooper, and raked leaves at the Women’s shelter and other properties. We appreciate their time and hard work involved which reflects their strong spirit of caring and partnership in our community.

Stryker Volunteers Open Doors

Interested in learning how your group could volunteer with Open Doors Kalamazoo? Visit our website here to learn more: https://www.opendoorskalamazoo.org/group.html

Open Doors End of Year Appeal

11.21.13

Anthony and his son, Turner, moved into an apartment at Open Doors in August. Turner is a bright, articulate student and Anthony works full-time through a temp agency.

Life for this family has been challenging. Anthony struggled to find stable employment while raising his son in an emergency shelter for more than a year. Eventually they “doubled up” to live with someone they met at the shelter but it didn’t work out, so they were homeless again.

Open Doors was able to provide an affordable, stable home they could call their own. Anthony and Turner are

grateful and relieved. “It’s awesome,” says Turner about their one-bedroom apartment. His dad adds, “This is a real blessing. We don’t have to back to the street.”

Turner finally feels safe and secure after years of living with instability and anxiety. He has a quiet, private place to concentrate on school work. His dad feels a new sense of dignity and plans to beautify their new home with window box flowers in the spring.

Open Doors provides affordable homes and supportive community for adults and children with nowhere to live. This makes a tremendous difference in their lives. Anthony puts it this way: “You saved us. You put a roof over our heads.”

We are asking you to consider investing in a family like Anthony and Turner. A gift of $1,000 will provide a family with stable housing and personal support for a year. A gift of $400 will provide housing and support for almost five months. Your investment will make it possible for a local family to have a home and build a healthy, productive life.

What a tremendous gift that is.

Sincerely,

Rick Stravers
Executive Director

New Info Shows Kalamazoo County Housing Crisis is Getting Worse

07.03.13

New information from the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s analysis of US Census data shows the housing crisis in Kalamazoo County is getting much worse instead of better. The number of renters in Kalamazoo County increased to 35,645 households, still about a third of the county. But the number of extremely low income renter households increased by 38% from approximately 8,000 households to just under 11,000 households. These households earn 30% or less of the area median income, which means they are very poor. How poor? For a single person, it means their annual income is less than $13,300, or less than $1108 per month. Two-thirds of these households, or 7,405 households, pay over half their income for rent and utilities. These are households who are just one small crisis away from tipping into homelessness.

What is the housing gap we need to address? There are 2,755 rental units in our county that are affordable and available for this group. An apartment is affordable if you can pay your rent and utilities with 30% of your monthly income. To say an apartment is available to this group means that either an extremely low income household lives in the apartment or it is designated for extremely low-income individuals. This is relevant because some people with better incomes live in apartments that would be affordable to the poorest renters in our county. Another way to say this is that there are 43 affordable rental units in our county for every 100 extremely low income households. There are only 25 affordable units that are in fact available for every 100 extremely low income households.

So we need to create 8,230 rental units in our county that are affordable and available to extremely low income men and women and their families.

How can we do it?

P.S. Thanks to Kathy Roberts of LISC for sharing this information with me.