There’s No Place Like Home

By Laura Haskell, Community LINC Volunteer

Community LINC provides that stability that so many homeless families crave. 

“Close your eyes, tap your heels together three times and think to yourself, there’s no place like home!”

How simple life would be if we could all click our heels together and magically appear in our homes. Unfortunately, not everyone in Kansas City has a place of their own to call home.

On February 17^th, you have the chance to give families in Kansas City the building blocks to make a place of their own home. We are launching the Homes Matter campaign for the first time at Community LINC. During this single day you can help us reach our goal of raising $25,000. A gift can provide bedding, kitchen and bath fundamentals for the families we serve. Together we can make a difference in the community and start hundreds of homeless on their journey to self-sufficiency.

Spread the word about our Homes Matter campaign by sharing our story and inviting your friends and family to participate!  Help give KC families the basics: bit.ly/1KctGo7 #HomesMatter

Community Matters

By Tiffani Kintchen, Special Events Manager

“I deeply believe in Community LINCs mission to break the cycle of homelessness for children and families by helping them build lives of hope, stability, and greater self-sufficiency. We can all make a difference by working together, and I am blessed to be part of a community of churches, businesses, and individuals who pull together to help families in crisis.”

As the Special Events Manager, my job isn’t working hands on with the children and families who come to Community LINC.  My role is generate the funds needed to sustain our programs and services.  It’s through the generosity of our donors that has brought light back into the lives of so many families.  While the staff and volunteers at Community LINC dedicate their energies to creating opportunities for each family to achieve stability and self-sufficiency, it is the individuals, churches, businesses and organization in our community who have truly cared to break the cycle of homelessness amongst us.  Without the support of our community, none of the life-changing transformations would have been possible.  On their behalf, I thank you!  You are literally changing the lives of families. 

Your support made it possible.  As I begin to look forward to our annual Rent Party fundraising event, I am once again excited about the anticipated always-generous response by our community to support the families at Community LINC.  While it is true we are blessed beyond measure by how the community partners with us, I find the most exciting part to be the gathering of friends, new and old.  Nothing makes us happier than to introduce new friends to the joy of helping homeless families find hope again and to reacquaint ourselves with those already standing alongside us.   

The best part about my job at Community is knowing that the funds we raise will provide children and their family a safe and stable place to call home.  We will provide them a firm foundation from which to launch as they work to find permanent housing, increase their job skills and employment, and improve their financial stability.  Lives are being changed here at Community LINC, and we thank you – OUR COMMUNITY for your part in that. The power of our community to generate change is formidable.  Together we have brought hope and stability into the lives of families.

Intake Matters: Screening

By Intake and Resident Specialist Holly Gardner

I love what I do at Community LINC, I have varied responsibilities and a nice balance between interacting with people and helping to take care of our lovely old buildings here on Troost. One of my primary functions is to screen / interview new families and work with staff to determine acceptance into our program or referrals to other programs that may serve that family better. 

It is interesting to me to see the families face to face and listen to their words as they describe the different issues that have contributed to their current situation and what has led them to our door.  Of course there are commonalities such as lack of sufficient income or loss of all income, unreliable childcare or none at all. Untreated health issues or treated health issues flaring up.  Loss of significant relationships including death and divorce.  For many families violence.  There are education deficiencies too and changes of plans as families survive day to day.  Many times a combination of all these things may be in one application to sort through and discuss.  All too often our screenings are weighed down with these challenges, but what also comes through in our conversations are how individuals reacted and responded to their hardships.  How and when they took initiative to ask for help, who they turned to in the community and the paths they are on now due to that strength and courage to reach out and where their journey may take them now.

I see that strength a lot in the faces of our prospective families, the ones we accept in and get to know better and the ones that will have a different journey.  There is a grace in loss, I see that and have experienced it many times too.  We lose, we have set backs, we have heart ache and we rebuild one relationship at a time, one step at a time.  It is such an honor to work for an organization that sees these strengths in homeless families, the most vulnerable populations in our community, vests with them and in so doing provides a sturdy stone or two on their housing journey’s path.