Will Betenson

Community Writing Project: The Road Home

05/08/13

English 2010

Instructor: Trevor Smith

Report/Profile: The Road Home

The Road Home provides emergency shelter and a variety of programs that help individuals and families step out of homelessness and get back into our community. The goal of the Road Home is to help put an end to homelessness. They not only provide emergency shelter to the homeless but they also provide assistance in finding employment and permanent housing for folks. Basically it is their job to help people get back on their feet to where they are independent from any assistance. The Road Home is located in Downtown Salt Lake City across the street from the Gateway Mall. Along with shelter, they also provide food and clothes for those in need. This is known as their emergency service. There is an emergency service office located at the Road Home where a staff is ready to assist people with basic personal items, hygiene kits and clothing. One of the biggest strengths of the Road Home is their Rapid Rehousing Program. After speaking with one of the managers in the program I learned that over the last 3 years they have seen an increase of 309% in families. They have helped about 1,100 families move out of shelter and into housing through the Rapid Rehousing Program. This program provided families with barrier elimination, housing placement assistance, short- term subsidies and supportive services. An incredible 87% of families served remain successfully housed and have not returned to homelessness.

Nancy, the manager of the Rehousing program said in my interview with her, We believe in a progressive engagement method: Families receive a small amount of support at first, then additional or more intensive support is added if they struggle to stabilize. From 2009 to 2012 they utilized Federal Stimulus Funds received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to rapidly rehouse families in the community. 13% of families received more intensive housing services and support. Single men, women and youths were also placed in housing through the Rapid Rehousing Program. At the end of the interview I asked Nancy what the goal of the future would be for the road home and she answered, Looking forward, the Road Home will continue to assist families using similar methods as they overcome homelessness. In this way we will be able to assist as many families as possible with the resources we have available.

Writing Project
For the writing project, I was asked by the Road Home to create a TriFold that would help visualize and inform the need for clothing and donations for folks who walk by the road home. The Tri-Fold was entitled, The Road Home- In Kind Donations. It consisted of 5 sections: 1. Greatest Needs 2. Clothing 3. Household 4. Infant and Children 5. Hygiene. The purpose of this tri-fold was to help communicate and provide images of the need for the Road Homes in-kind donations throughout the year. The main Goal of this board was to quickly and visually communicate the Road Homes greatest needs for donations. It consisted of writing and placing images that would quickly draw people into reading the board.

Self- Reflective Essay

For my community writing project, I chose to do a project for the Road Home of Salt Lake City. The reason I chose this organization was because I knew someone who worked for this organization and I was also interested in helping them out. I told the Road Home that I would be willing to perform any kind of writing project for them and they gave me the task of creating a tri-fold that would help indicate the need for in-kind donations throughout the year. The intended audience would be for anyone that walks by this display to understand the need for donations at The Road Home. It could be anyone from a visitor to someone who is also in need of donations. My main purpose in writing was to point out the main necessities for Donations at the Road Home. I wanted to clearly point out what was needed without being overly informative. Again, this was a visual to entice people to the idea rather than provide every single detail and matter involved with the organization. The process of completing the project took awhile. The longest part was waiting to find out what sort of task I could perform for the Road Home. Once I was assigned the project I was able to complet it pretty quickly. I just needed to figure out the best way to entice people both visually and informativley. Overall, I think I did pretty well with this project. The Road Home Workers seemed to very much like it and I performed everything they wanted in the project. I tried to be as creative a I could without making it my own project. I wanted to stick with what they had asked of me.

Throughout this project I was able to learn a lot about this organization and all the great things they have accomplished. It was great to hear about all of the success they have had and the goals that they are working towards. One thing I learned about myself was I could do a whole lot more to help folks that are in need. There are a lot of homeless people who are very hungry and needy. Througout my writing I learned there is so much writing can do in this world. The type of writing I brought made it possible for people to receive clothing and food that would maybe otherwise not have happened. I was very glad to have done this community writing project and I was very grateful for the oppurtunity.