Update to Our Shelter

House of Hope was recently awarded $48,196 from the Franklin Square Foundation to update our shelter. Below is a portion of our application description for what this very generous grant will be used towards. We are so thankful for this generous grant and look forward to updating our shelter so that we may better serve more families.

Our proposal perfectly aligns with our core principles and strategic planning as a major upgrade of our furnishings with quality fixtures will communicate the deep regard that have for our families.  For more then 25 years we have utilized and jerry rigged and made do with donated bedroom furniture and asked families to “make the best of it” when bed slats fell out or bureau drawers had no handles.  Today, well into our 26^th year of service to poor women and their children, after adding onto our building, upgrading the electrical, replacing the heating system, rebuilding the façade, installing walk in refrigerator and freezer, installing a sprinkler, upgrading our bathrooms, addressing handicap accessibility, removing carpet and rebuilding bedroom floors, building a playground and creating respectful office space it is time to ask for help in acquiring quality, functioning and appealing furniture and fixtures.  The way House of Hope has addressed its own needs is much the way we guide our families; health, safety, function and then form.  It is time for House of Hope to embrace form and make sure that all functional realities in our shelter communicate our affection and care for our families.

Although we are asking for support from Franklin Square House Foundation to upgrade by replacing all bedroom and common area furniture in our largest 18 unit facility this is not the entire undertaking as we will also paint the entire exterior of the building, replace broken windows, install professional grade window bars (right now we use home made, wood planks), replace both front and rear main access doors and replace poorly functioning residential grade toilets with higher quality near commercial class commodes.

House of Hope is committed to rolling out all of these capital improvements because we believe that these upgrades will support the delivery of service to the many families who rely on us for short term shelter and permanent housing placement and support.  If our furniture is ragged and worn and mismatched then it is far too easy to assume that our services, programming and commitment is too.  We hope that with help from the Franklin Square Foundation we will be able to roll out a 100% replacement of our commonly used furniture.  Once we have what we need we will implement a replacement plan that is manageable.

All useable furniture will be made available to residents moving out of shelter or to our local furniture bank so that there will be no waste of useable items.

Enterprise Bank’s 2010 Celebration of Excellence

Deb Chausse, the Executive Director of the House of Hope, was recently nominated to be awarded Enterprise Bank’s 2010 Celebration of Excellence Award. Click here to read more about the Enterprise 2010 Celebration of Excellence.

A Most Sincere Thank You

The Lowell Sun recently published a letter written by Deb Chausse, Executive Director of HOH, expressing our gratitude to the Greater Lowell Community Foundation for the generous foundation grant awarded to House of Hope just last week, and to the larger community for supporting our mission for nearly 25 years.

Our thanks to a generous, supportive community

A New Addition

As a result of generous support from the Greater Lowell Community Foundation, Boyle Transportation, and Andrew and Keri Boyle, House of Hope recently purchased this awesome truck.  House of Hope will use this vehicle for many tasks, including plowing all of our properties, food bank runs, and moving residents from shelter to permanent housing.